

i 


LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 




CiinplB/^Cop^ri^l ^515$ 








UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 









THE CATHEDRAL 



AMERICAN CHU 




JAMES M. WOOLWORTH, LL.D., 

CHANCELLOR OF THE DIOCESE OF NEBRASKA. 



is no true reverence to follow tip old lines without 
extending them. They give dignity if we know how to 
develop them; but if we will not step beyond them on 
vital call, we make trammels for ourselves, and are 
most unlike those old founders whom we propose to 
imitate." — Archbishop Benson, 1877. 



1 



New York : 
E. P. DUTTON AND COMPANY, 
39 West 23d Street. 
1883. 




Copyright, 1883, 
By James M. WoolwoftH. 



TO THE RIGHT REVEREND 
ROBERT HARPER CLARKSON, D. D. , LL. D. , 
BISHOP OF NEBRASKA, 
THESE PAGES, THE RESULT OF READING BEGUN 

AT HIS INSTANCE 
AND WRITTEN IN AID OF HIS CATHEDRAL AND 
ITS ORGANIZATION, 
ARE INSCRIBED 
vVITH EVERY SENTIMENT OF DUTIFUL 
RESPECT AND AFFECTION. 



PREFACE. 



When organizing his Cathedral Chapter in Nebraska, 
Bishop Clarkson called upon the writer of this little 
book for help. In advocacy of the scheme which was 
presented to the council of the diocese for its adoption 
the undersigned wrote a report of a committee raised 
for considering the subject, going over it somewhat 
more fully and particularly than is common in such 
papers.' This circumstance has led several Bishops 
from time to time, as they have had the organization 
of the Cathedral of their dioceses in contemplation, tc 
advise with the writer. In this way he has been led 
to see a want of information on this subject, and that 
it is not readily accessible. In England many valuable 
and interesting books on the Cathedral have within this 
generation been published, and in our country a con- 
siderable number of papers in explanation and advocacy 
of the institution have been printed in periodicals and 
pamphlets. Every one who wishes to possess himself 
of the whole subject ought to read them all. But it 
certainly will be convenient that information on the 
subject should be collected within the thin covers of 



VI 



Preface. 



this little book. This has led the writer to undertake 
the task of preparing it. 

Having made this explanation, it may be right for 
him to state something of the way in which he has 
executed it. He has not indulged the least hesitancy 
in the freest use of what others have said. He has 
adopted their words when they have answered his pur- 
pose, and their great names seemed to add authority 
to their opinions; and he has appropriated their views 
when for any reason, such as brevity, he could not 
quote their language. He wishes here in this general 
way to disclaim all originality or pretense of it. At 
the same time, when the conditions of our country 
and generation have come into view he has expressed 
his own opinion with reference to them. 

Many matters which might well be given a place 
in a book on the subject have been passed over; others 
which might well be given a large place have been only 
touched upon. This has been necessary in the writer's 
view of the practical usefulness of the book. He has 
thought that next to such a book being written it was 
most desirable that it should be small. He hopes, 
however, that it may suggest to the interested reader 
more than is written out at length. 

J. M. W. 

' Omaha, May, 1883. 



CONTENTS. 



I. INTRODUCTORY ..... 

II. HISTORICAL . . 

III. DIFFERENCES 

IV. THE CHAPTER THE BISHOPS COUNCIL 

V. THE CATHEDRAL AS A MISSIONARY AGENCY 

VI. THE DAILY OFFICE .... 

VII. ACCESSORIES ..... 

VIII. THE CATHEDRAL AND THE SEE CITY . 



INTRODUCTORY. 



T N the scheme upon which the American 
Church was organized the Cathedral had 
no place. It was looked upon by the men who 
had in hand the work of framing that scheme, 
as unsuited to the circumstances in which they 
found themselves. It was a hundred years ago, 
lacking two; and just after they had won for 
the nation its recognition by the mother coun- 
try. The struggle had been long and hard; 
and it left behind active and bitter prejudices 
against whatever was thought to be purely 
English. The Cathedral was known only as 
an English institution, and not at all as of 
ancient origin or practical value. Besides this, 
the sentiment of the people was intensely demo- 
cratic. In politics and in society, whatever sa- 
vored of a system of government or mode of 



2 



Introductory. 



organization in which every individual member 
of the constituencies was not the equal of every 
other w r as reprobated. The right of the Epis- 
copate itself was questioned, and the Church 
which accepted it was distrusted by the gen- 
eral opinion; and that, too, though the func- 
tion was much depressed. The Cathedral was 
looked upon as the luxurious appendage of 
the Establishment in a monarchical govern- 
ment whose dignitaries arrogated to them- 
selves rank and power. And in addition to 
all this, there was wanting the pecuniary means 
which were supposed to be necessary to the 
maintenance of an institution which was as- 
sociated with wealth and self-indulgent ease. 

Even if the little body of churchmen who 
met in the first conventions did not all sym- 
pathize with the common prejudices, and were 
not imperfectly informed of the essential na- 
ture of this institution, as we are justified in 
assuming from the records which they left 
behind them of their action and opinions, it 
is certain that they felt themselves constrained 
by the circumstances to frame the constitu- 



Introductory. 



3 



tion of the Church upon principles and a plan 
which did not provide a place for the Cathedral. 

And for generations it seems not to have 
entered into the mind of any one, or if the 
subject engaged the thoughts of any, certainly 
no attempt was made, to graft the Cathedral 
upon the Church as it was first organized. 
For seventy years it continued to be re- 
garded as alien to our system. In the course 
of that time prejudices against the old en- 
emy were mollified: the Church of England 
began to be venerated as the Mother Church: 
the Episcopate recovered to a good degree 
its precedence and power: the history of the 
Catholic Church began to be understood and 
its lessons were pondered and appropriated: 
American churchmen in goodly numbers every 
year were visiting the old country and enjoy- 
ing the beauty and majesty and solemn re- 
ligious atmosphere of the Cathedrals there. 
And yet no one conceived the idea, or at any 
rate gave it emphatic expression, that in this 
American soil such institutions could be 
planted, or that in this American Church 



4 



Introductory. 



they could find either use, support, or tol- 
eration. 

About thirty years ago, however, an attempt 
in this direction was made. Not long after he 
was sent out to California, Bishop Kip essayed 
the task of introducing the Cathedral. All he 
did was to place his Episcopal chair in Grace 
Church of San Francisco and call it his Cathe- 
dral. He did this by no authority but his right 
as Rector of the Parish; and when his incum- 
bency ceased the name of Cathedral ceased 
with it. He afterwards held the Rectorship 
of the Church of the Advent, and there set up 
his Episcopal seat, and gave its edifice the 
same name; and withdrew both when he re- 
signed the position. 

But this good came of it. Attention was 
drawn to the subject, and inquiry began to be 
made whether what our fathers had rejected 
and what had generally been set aside as un- 
suited to the circumstances of the Church in 
this land, was not entitled to consideration. 
That happened which is very apt to happen 
in the case of a truth long neglected or an 



Introductory. 



5 



institution long ignored. Several thoughtful 
and learned men in different parts of the 
country, at the same time and without concert, 
began to consider the question. They did 
not content themselves with simply studying 
the organization, functions and work of English 
Cathedrals at that time, but pressed their ex- 
aminations with urgency and rigor, on the one 
hand, into the insufficiency of an unattached 
Episcopate to fully exercise its function, and on 
the other into the history of the Cathedral in 
the days of the primitive Church and the early 
English Church as the complement of the func- 
tion of the Bishop. 

The result was that, coming to the publication 
of their views, they set forth in several interest- 
ing, valuable and learned papers what seemed 
to them defects in the organism of the Church, 
and the adequacy and aptness of the rejected 
institution to supply them. Then came Bishop 
Whitehouse's powerful advocacy by which the 
mind of the Church was greatly informed and 
moved. Following this was the erection by 
Bishop Whipple of his noble church, at Fari- 



6 



Introductory . 



bault; and soon afterwards Bishop Lee began 
to build his Bishop's Church which he conse- 
crated as Grace Cathedral at Davenport, and 
Bishop Neeley built St. Luke's at Portland. 
More recently the organizations at Milwaukee, 
Omaha, Albany, Reading, and in several of 
the missionary jurisdictions, with constitu- 
tions attempting to realize their purpose 
more thoroughly than had been proposed 
before, carried yet farther the question of the 
office, work, use and value of the Cathedral, 
as it might be made a factor in the American 
Church. And now, not less than twenty-five 
Cathedrals in different dioceses in widely sep- 
arated parts of the country are every day 
challenging attention to the claims of institu- 
tions of their class. 

It is quite true that many of them are organ- 
ized upon a very slender foundation. They are 
nothing more than parish churches with the 
Bishop's chair set in the midst of the choir; 
very few have undertaken works beyond or 
other than what a large parish may carry on, 
and have not assumed any relations to the 



Introductory. 



7 



administration of diocesan affairs. The or- 
ganization of all of them is studiously declared 
by their founders to be tentative, and to be 
developed hereafter according to circum- 
stances. 

During the quarter of a century of efforts to 
engraft this institution upon the organization 
of the American Church this much of progress 
has been made; that to-day the Cathedral 
stands forth with just claims to a patient, 
intelligent, and unprejudiced hearing upon 
its competency to bring greater force, vigor 
and efficiency to the appliances heretofore in 
use to advance the Kingdom of Heaven upon 
the earth. And the question is the more 
present, practical and interesting, because 
enough has not yet been done to satisfy 
those who ask it and who are not to be put 
off by dignity of names and titles or by 
glittering generalities. 

It cannot be doubted that the condition of 
English Cathedrals as they have been until 
lately, has withheld American churchmen from 
considering their value to the work they had 



8 



Introductory. 



to do. Nor, on the other hand, can it be 
denied that the attention of thoughtful men 
here has been aroused by the many vigorous, 
anxious and pious efforts which have been 
making in the Mother Church to vindicate the 
right of these institutions to be and to make 
them of practical service. What has been 
done, written and said on one side of the At- 
lantic and on the other, furnishes a mass of most 
interesting and attractive learning, of which 
the intelligent and devout churchman here 
ought to desire to have some information. 

When an institution to which the people 
are unused presents itself to them, and claims 
recognition and adoption into the social econ- 
omy, it is bound to give an account of itself. 
Simply because it demands a place in the ways 
of men and desires to make trial of itself in 
the public service, it has no right to expect, and 
it is not likely to gain acceptance. It must 
be ready to explain what it is and what it can 
do. It must prove its legitimacy by a descent 
traced from some approved order of things in 
the past, or justify itself by its fitness to supply 



Introductory. 



9 



some defect or inadequacy of prevalent modes, 
or show that it embodies a truth which needs 
new emphasis in popular belief and new exem- 
plification in social methods. It has no right 
to unsettle what has been tried and found suf- 
ficient, what has become familiar to the people 
and upon which habits and traditions have 
been formed, and around which affections 
cluster, unless it can set forth the way in 
which, if it have a chance, it will yield a better 
service or the same service at less cost of en- 
ergy or money than what it will supplant or 
modify. Change from what men are wonted 
to is seldom altogether good: if it be not from 
bad to good, or from good to something better, 
it is positively bad. 

And more than this: an institution pre- 
senting itself to society and asking recogni- 
tion and acceptance, cannot wholly commend 
itself to the public intelligence by simply show- 
ing that, viewed abstractly, it is better than 
the existing order. The question is hardly 
ever simply the merits of the claimant, or 
even its superiority to received methods. If 



I o In trodnctory. 

that were so, society would be in a constant 
ferment over theories: the doctrinaire would 
be the true philosopher. The candidate for 
a place in the social economy must go farther 
in its apology; and show that in its nature, 
methods and necessary relations it is suited 
to the exigencies in which it is to operate. It 
may be ever so good in itself, venerable with 
the hoar of age, or beneficent, graceful and 
politic elsewhere, yet if it be alien to the con- 
ditions in which it claims a place, if it cannot 
assimilate with the circumstances and become 
acclimated to the atmosphere in which it 
must flourish, if it is to thrive at all, then it 
must be rejected of men. The settled order 
cannot be wholly reconstructed simply for 
its sake. 

The proposition to graft the Cathedral upon 
the organism of the American Church must 
submit to be tried by these practical, search- 
ing and rigorous tests. It must inform church- 
men of its nature. Tracing its lineage from 
the ancient days, it must show that it has 
been found to be an essential, or, if not an 



Introductory, 



essential, at least a general, permanent and 
valuable part of the polity of the Catholic 
Church. It is not enough that it bears a so- 
norous name, that it holds a dignified position 
in the Mother Church of England, that noble 
and generous associations cluster around it: 
it must point out a vacant place in the econ- 
omy of the daughter in America, and demon- 
strate its capacity to fill it, and, in the con- 
ditions, circumstances and exigencies of these 
times and this land, yield a service and do a 
work of special, substantial, certain, positive 
good. 

And the stress in the advocacy is the more 
severe because of the history of the American 
Church. A hundred years ago the number 
of her members and of her parishes was so 
small as to be insignificant among the mul- 
titudes who called themselves Christians. As 
we have before said, with traditions those of 
a hierarchy and with relations to the Estab- 
lishment of England, her polity seemed alien 
to the institutions of the country and contra- 
riant to the popular sentiment. From such 



12 



Introductory. 



small beginnings, and from the midst of such 
untoward circumstances she has won her way 
to the first place of influence and service among 
religious bodies and in society. The increase 
of her numbers has exceeded that of any of 
the Protestant denominations: her works of 
charity shed a flood of benevolence upon all 
the populations: she has attracted the largest 
proportion of the intelligence, piety and zeal 
in the cities, and she has penetrated the re- 
motest settlements on the frontier. All this 
she has done without the Cathedrat. It may 
well be asked if she has been competent to 
such achievements, why is she not equal to 
the exigencies that are before her in her future 
career ? 

Profoundly grateful for the past and rejoic- 
ing in it exceedingly, the advocates of the 
Cathedral may safely accept the challenge, 
and enter upon the attempt to prove that she 
is fit to render to the Church a most efficient 
service in the spread of the Gospel among 
men. 

Before proceeding to our task, it may be 



Introductory. 



13 



worth while to say that we assume that out- 
readers accept the theory of Apostolic Epis- 
copacy with all that the term implies; that is 
to say, that the Church was constituted by 
our divine Lord with the three orders of 
bishops, priests and deacons; that even in 
this our day the first trace their succession 
from the apostles, and the others derive their 
authority from them; and that this polity and 
this lineal descent and authority is necessary 
to every branch of the Catholic Church. We 
do not suppose that those who do not accept 
this theory will be interested in the discus- 
sion. This being premised, it is hardly nec- 
essary to say that the claim in behalf of the 
Cathedral is not that it is essential to the 
complete constitution of a true branch of the 
Catholic Church. We have seen that such 
is not the fact by our own case. And what 
is true with us is equally true of many of the 
churches of the English Colonies, where, as 
we shall presently see, the Cathedral does not 
exist at all or exists only in name. And the 
same may be said with equal truth of many 



Introductory. 



of the vicariates or missionary districts of the 
Romish Church. It cannot be pretended for 
a moment that the institution under consider- 
ation is of divine origin or essential character. 
All that can be claimed is that in the admin- 
istration of the Episcopal function, it has been 
found to be, and is by its nature well fitted to 
be, the complement of that office. 

There cannot be a Church without a Bishop: 
there can be a Bishop, a diocese and a Church 
without a Cathedral: but what we shall en- 
deavor to show is that the Bishop can best 
govern his Church and administer his function 
by the aid of his Cathedral. 



II. 



HISTORICAL. 



TT is not easy to understand the modes 
in which the early Church spread itself 
through the world, without apprehending the 
nature of the social and political organiza- 
tions of the times. A word at the outset may 
be allowed to its explanation. Society was 
urban: the political organization was munici- 
pal. Greece especially, and Italy also were 
full of towns. From any lofty peak, the ob- 
server could look down on the territory lying 
before him and see many cities at a glance. 
Within limits hardly wider than one of our 
counties, and among a people one in blood, 
language, manners, and religion, he could, in 
a short day's journey, pass through several 
capitals; and as one receded from his view, 



[6 



Historical. 



another rose before him, so that all the whole 
distance his vision was full of the mighty 
w r alls, the glorious architecture, and the teem- 
ing life of some metropolis. The fact that 
the people were congregated in the cities is 
but a fraction of the truth. It was to his city 
that the citizen turned with the enthusiastic 
affection of home. A man's country was not 
a region, but a city: his patriotism did not ex- 
tend over a w T ide surface of territory, but was 
shut up within the walls of a single town. 
His countrymen were not a whole nation of 
the same blood and language as himself, but 
only those who shared with him the local 
burghership of his native place. A man, in 
short, was not a Greek or an Italian, but an 
Athenian or a Roman. The city w r as the rul- 
ing political conception, and the form of polit- 
ical life was municipal. The freedman, the 
foreigner, even the dependent ally could not 
obtain citizenship by residence or even by 
birth in the land. He only who was the 
descendant of citizen-ancestors could be en- 
franchised except by special decree of the 



Historical. 



*7 



whole body of citizens. To live at a distance 
from the city, so that it was impossible to ap- 
pear habitually at the assemblage held within 
the walls was felt to be equivalent to a sen- 
tence of exile. And they whose homes were 
thus remote were reckoned as lost to the citi- 
zenship, and as of an inferior and contemned 
race. Nor was this true only of Greece and 
Italy. All the provinces of imperial Rome 
were full of great cities. Gibbon tells us of 
the twelve hundred cities of Gaul, whose 
southern provinces simulated the wealth and 
elegance of Italy. He quotes Pliny as his 
authority for numbering those of Spain as 
three hundred and sixty. Three hundred ac- 
knowledged the authority of Carthage; which 
capital rose under the emperors with new 
splendor from its ashes, and recovered all 
the advantages which can be separated from 
independent sovereignty. Under the reign 
of the Caesars, the proper Asia alone contained 
five hundred populous cities, enriched with all 
the gifts of nature and adorned with all the 
refinement of art. The capitals of Syria and 



IS 



Historical. 



Egypt held still a superior rank in the empire. 
Antioch and Alexandria looked down with 
disdain on a crowd of dependent cities, and 
yielded with reluctance to the majesty of 
Rome itself. 

One other fact remains to be noted. With- 
in the walls of each of these cities were the 
schools of philosophy, the political assembly, 
the sharp activities of commerce, the glorious 
works of art, and the magnificent temples and 
the worship of the gods. They who lived in 
the midst of all this urban culture, excitement 
and strife could but grow in mental vigor, 
sensitiveness of spirit, and eagerness for what 
was new. On the other hand, they who were 
shut out and condemned to the drudgery of dai- 
ly and endless toil, born to labor, and with chil- 
dren doomed to the same hard lot, grew with 
the years and the generations more and more 
stolid; clinging unreasoningly to the past, and 
unready to adopt what was unwonted and 
new. 

When they to whom the august command 
was given to go into all the world and preach 



Historical. 



19 



the Gospel to every creature, set about its 
obedience, they followed of necessity the lines 
on which they found society organized. They 
passed through the fields and villages and 
the scanty and stolid populations there into 
the city. They did so because here the multi- 
tudes were gathered. The simple fact of 
numbers brought them here. And these mul- 
titudes, by education, culture, refinement, and 
long, daily and anxious reasoning about the 
soul, its nature and destiny, had outgrown the 
mythology of their fathers, and were ready 
to hear, heed and accept a new solution of the 
mysteries of life, death, and immortality. To 
whom but to these populations, unsatisfied 
by the guesses of philosophers confessing 
their ignorance by altars to the unknown God 
and in their impotence seeking after the Lord, 
if haply they might feel after Him and find 
Him, — to whom of all men but these wander- 
ing, anxious, troubled souls could the revela- 
tion of the Gospel be first brought ? But an 
itinerant Apostleship, that blessed one city for 
a little while, and then, before what there had 



20 



Historical. 



been won was well assured, was under the ne- 
cessity of passing on to another, was unequal 
to the exigencies. Nor could Bishops with 
jurisdiction over a wide region in which were 
many cities accomplish the task. We have 
seen that each of these cities was a whole coun- 
try unto its citizens, and commanded of them 
a patriotism as enthusiastic and narrow as the 
love of home. A local, stationary, resident, 
and municipal Episcopate was the only institu- 
tion which could effectually work upon such 
populations. A Bishop of Greece or Italy was 
impossible. The autonomy of a Church in 
each city was a necessity by reason of the na- 
ture of every municipality. 

This preliminary but essential fact being 
explained, we may go on to inquire how the 
actual work was conducted. The way of it 
was what we should expect. Going to his 
own city, the Bishop established himself in 
a certain place of residence and ministration. 
Here he gathered about him his priests and 
deacons in numbers according to circum- 
stances; all living together, their hearts aflame 



Historical. 



21 



with a common zeal, their intense activities 
devoted to a common work. They were all 
ruled by the Bishop as the head of the com- 
munity and fountain of authority. Here with 
the aid of those he trusts he lays out the 
work, apportioning it among his clergy, and 
allotting to each his task and sending him on 
his peculiar mission. Almost may we see him 
now standing on the steps of the altar in the 
light of the early morning, his priests and 
deacons, w r orkers and converts all about him, 
and hear him send them forth with some such 
words as ours in the hymn, 

"Oft in danger, oft in woe, 
Onward Christians, onward go." 

Only, to the little company of eager and 
heroic souls it is not a mere sentiment, but 
a very real fight he bids them to, and to an 
almost present victory of martyrdom he cheers 
them on. 

They go into the streets and markets and 
schools and houses and to the very doors of 
the temples of the gods they would cast down. 



22 



Historical. 



They arrest any who will be detained by the 
story of the Crucified; and beg, persuade and 
constrain him to listen to the new doctrine. 
They bring one and another home to the 
Bishop, who teaches these wondering souls 
in the mysteries of the strange faith, minis- 
ters to the distress of their spirits, baptizes 
them at the font, confirms them in their 
vows, and receives them at the altar. 

Nor is this all that goes on in these sacred 
precincts. These missionaries come to the 
Holy Father with their reports of what, out 
in the world, they have seen and heard and 
done and tried to do. He learns from them 
of movements of the people, the policies of 
the government, the feelings of the higher 
classes, whether they incline to the cause or 
threaten it with violence. He plans meas- 
ures to meet each overture, whether of friend- 
liness or malice. And, alike if it be storm 
or sunshine without, he keeps calm and sa- 
cred this common home of all his people; 
where all the ways of all their work begin 
and end; whither after all toils and dangers 



Historical. 



23 



and persecutions they turn their weary feet 
for rest and their weary hearts for solace; 
and where is the altar at which as the High 
Priest their Bishop offers the holy sacrifice. 
That home was in those days the Cathedral. 
It was not only the first Church in order of 
time; it held a primacy among- all the institu- 
tions of the Christian State and was the focus 
of all the work of all the diocese. 

The above account is generally applicable 
to Asia, Africa and southern Europe. In 
Saxon England the circumstances were some- 
what different. There were few towns. The 
population was sparsely scattered over the 
country. Each family with its branches and 
dependents living by itself held wide tracts 
of land and much of the country lay vacant. 
The people w r ere devoted to agriculture and 
pasturage. Their manners were rude and sim- 
ple, and they were disinclined to the exactions 
of compact society. The polity was loose 
and easy; the country was divided among 
many tribes, with indefinite, democratic con- 
stitutions. Each had its king, but he was 



24 



Historical. 



king in little else than name, except for pur- 
poses of defense and war. 

The organization of the Church consisted 
with that of the society and the State. The 
Bishop entering upon the work of converting a 
tribe fixed his seat, his bishopstool as it was 
called, at any convenient place of his choice 
and with no regard to population. Some- 
times, as for instance at Ely, he planted it 
by itself in a vacant region; the religious 
colony afterwards drawing the people around 
it. Accordingly he was the Bishop not of 
a city but of a tribe. This is illustrated by 
his style. On the continent, as we have seen, 
the Episcopate, consistent with the structure 
of society and of the civil polity, was urban, 
and the Bishops were called after their city, as 
the Bishop of Jerusalem, of Antioch, of Rome. 
On the Island, on the other hand, society being 
rural and the polity tribal, the Episcopate ac- 
cordingly was rural and the Bishops took 
their style from their people. For instance, 
there was a tribe called the Somersaetas, from 
which the name Somerset comes. The Bishop 



Historical. 



whose seat was at Wells, was the Bishop not 
of Wells but of the Somersaetas. There was 
also the tribe of the West Saxons who had the 
royal city of Winchester. Their Bishop was 
not the Bishop of Winchester but of the West 
Saxons. 

But however interesting this difference in 
circumstances, the work in Britain was the 
same as eleswhere and was carried on in the 
same way. The Bishop going into a wide 
territory, among a rude tribe, made choice 
of the place where he should live and whence 
he and his helpers should carry on their work. 
Here he built the Church, houses, gardens, farms 
and all necessary conveniences for his clerical 
colony. Here he gathered about him his 
priests and deacons in considerable numbers, 
giving them homes in his own houses and 
supporting them from his revenues. The life 
was not necessarily celibate, nor under one 
roof nor at one table; but it was in com- 
munity. He was the head of the family and 
he ruled it as an abbot his monastery. He 
apportioned the work among his clergy, giv- 



26 



Historical. 



ing to each his place, office and task. To 
this one he gave this circuit to travel in the 
country of the tribe, and to another that: to 
one he appointed this station or mission and 
to another that; and so on through all the 
work of the diocese. Among the rude and 
scattered population, the service was more 
desultory than it was in the midst of the in- 
tense life of the thronged city, but there was 
the same vigor, the same discipline, the same 
brave and eager spirit which was never wearied 
by toil nor daunted by danger or persecution. 
As the work was the same among the rural 
people of Britain as among the urban popula- 
tion of Greece and Italy, namely, their con- 
version to the cross, so too the manner of 
it was the same, namely, the Bishop and his 
clergy collected in one community and home, 
about one altar, and thence going forth among 
those to whom they were sent. The sphere 
of duty whose center was here embraced all 
ministrations, charities, instructions, and in- 
terests; and the service which went forth 
hence was circumscribed only by the boun- 



Historical. 



27 



daries of the whole diocese. For four cen- 
turies this was the polity of the Church. Every- 
where the Bishop was the fountain of author- 
ity, alike where society was urban and he was 
the Bishop of a city, and where it was rural 
and he was the Bishop of a tribe. He gathered 
his clergy about him in a great center: from 
thence he sent them forth, thither they re- 
turned: their goings and comings, their work 
and their life ever under his direct, personal, 
particular direction. This center was the 
Cathedral, and this polity was the diocesan 
system. 

The first step of departure from the dioce- 
san system was taken one way on the Con- 
tinent, and another in England. Let that 
step be first traced in the cities of Southern 
Europe, Asia and Africa. When the work 
was well advanced within the walls the Bishop 
sent his clergy into the dependent region. We 
have already remarked the character of the 
people there. For generations, bent to toil 
and shut out of the means of education, 
they were slow, stolid, tenacious of what 



28 



Historical. 



they were used to, and unready for what was 
new to them. This showed itself in their con- 
version: they were content with the faith of 
their fathers. The worship of Jupiter and Juno, 
Venus, Mercury, and the other gods, satisfied 
the needs of their dull hearts, and the old 
mythology answered all their inquiries after 
the life beyond death. The work of their con- 
version was hard, slow: it had none of the 
excitement and vivacity of the city. The first 
measures in their behalf were desultory and 
irregular. The manner of it was on this wise. 
From time to time, as occasion offered, and as 
the other work allowed, men were sent out 
from the city to declare the message of the 
Gospel to these dull ears and heedless minds. 
Very little impression was made for a long 
time. The least vigorous and successful of 
the missions to the heathen in our day make 
their way much more rapidly. Indeed, long 
after the cities had accepted the new faith, the 
country clung to the old, so that the name 
of the rural people, pagcuii, came to have the 
meaning of our word pagan. 



Historical. 



29 



When at last Christianity was proclaimed 
by Constantine, and the country people al- 
most by constraint submitted to the new doc- 
trine, the work was carried on among them 
with more method. The Bishop sent his men 
out to them weekly or daily, and kept the 
communication open. When converts in some 
numbers were gathered at one point, so that 
it was inconvenient to reach them and supply 
their needs from the city, excursions were aban- 
doned, and the Bishop appointed one or more 
of his clergy to remain among them. The 
passing to and fro between the station and 
the Cathedral kept going on, and their rela- 
tions were the closest: the clergy returning 
frequently to the Bishop to report their pro- 
gress, receive directions, and be relieved by 
others. He still directed the work of each 
and the method of it. But after a time these 
relations were relaxed. The priest appointed 
to a mission held his place longer and longer, 
came into the city less frequently, formed local 
attachments, and at last made his permanent 
home there. Meanwhile, within the walls the 



3o 



Historical. 



Church, its people, worship, charities, and re- 
lations to society and the government grew to 
such proportions as to absorb the time and 
thoughts of the Bishop. He no longer at- 
tended personally to the wants of the mis- 
sions, and relaxed his supervision of them. 
This went on farther and farther, until he 
preserved little more than a visitorial power 
over them. At first there grew up indepen- 
dence; then there was isolation. Left alto- 
gether to themselves the priest and his people 
assumed to own all the property and to have 
rights separate and corporate of their own. 
Instead of one society with the Bishop at its 
head directing the work, leading the worship, 
and administering all the affairs of the dio- 
cese at the one Cathedral, another detached, 
independent, isolated society grew up which 
was a corporation apart from other bodies and 
altogether competent to all its own needs. 
This was a parish. 

It must not be supposed that the parish 
is peculiarly a rural institution. The same 
process by which it grew up in the country 



Historical. 



31 



was also going on in the city. When Chris- 
tianity became the religion of the people, 
the Cathedral could not contain the multi- 
tudes which thronged its courts. Churches 
in various parts of the city were built. 
By the relics of the saints, the sanctity 
of their priests, and the learning of their 
doctors they drew to themselves the venera- 
tion of the people. Their dependence upon 
the Cathedral was impracticable for many 
reasons; and soon, though they were within 
the walls of the city, they too became sepa- 
rate, independent, isolated corporations. 

And yet in the midst of all this new growth 
the Cathedral remained the center of the dioce- 
san administration and service; having a prece- 
dence of all churches because it was the Bishop's 
seat, and relations which no other church could 
share. Indeed one of the most astonishing facts 
in history is the universal prevalence in all parts 
of the Catholic Church until the last century of 
this institution. 

Let us trace now the first step of departure 
from the purely diocesan system as it was 



32 



Historical. 



taken in England. This step was not directly 
to the parochial system. The polity of the 
Church passed through an intermediate pro- 
cess before the local organism was developed. 
This, like most other changes, grew out of the 
circumstances of society. When the people of 
Britain were brought from paganism into the 
Church, the business of ministering to their spir- 
itual wants became excessive. We have seen 
that the populations were sparsely scattered 
over a wide region; it was therefore inconven- 
ient to reach all the people of the diocese from 
the one Cathedral. To meet these conditions, 
religious communities were planted in the dif- 
ferent parts of the diocese. Each of these so- 
cieties built its Church, as large and imposing as 
its means allowed and not infrequently as grand 
as the Cathedral. Its members numbered from 
ten or a dozen to fifty; their life was in commu- 
nity, although not necessarily monastic. To 
each a district was allotted, with cure of souls 
therein, and with right to tithes and church- 
dues from all the inhabitants. From this their 
home, they radiated through the region com- 



Historical. 



33 



mitted to them, carrying their ministrations 
from house to house and from family to family, 
and conducting their work in all respects as the 
Bishop and his clergy had carried on theirs at 
and from the Cathedral. These Churches were 
the Minsters of England, and this was the min- 
ster system. The scheme was like that of 
associate missions in our Church conceived, 
explained, and advocated in many earnest and 
learned papers, but never realized in any large 
and permanent way. Those who have given 
themselves the - pleasure of reading the life 
of Doctor Breck, lately published, may, from 
his plans for the Nashotah and Seabury 
Missions, gain a vivid conception of the es- 
sence of the English Minster. The Cathedral 
and the Minster were both missionary estab- 
lishments, having a considerable number of 
clergy, who went forth from their common 
home into the region round about, and gen- 
erally carrying on the same work in the same 
way. Their systems differed in this: there was 
one Cathedral in the diocese, with the Bishop 
at its head: there were several minsters in 



34 



Historical. 



one diocese, each with a dean or abbot at 
its head. 

The first relaxation of the minster-system 
in England was the concession which was 
made in the tenth century, that a thane who 
had a Church with a burial place, might pay 
one third of his tithe to his own Church and 
the other two thirds to the Minster; but if 
he had a Church without a burial place (a 
chapel, as we should now call it) he must 
support his clerk himself. The clerk by de- 
grees acquired a shrift district, perhaps in- 
fluenced or determined by the extent of the 
thane's territory. 

Archdeacon Stopford thus described the 
manner in which the Minsters were gradu- 
ally supplanted by the parochial clergy. 

"The decline of the minster system is dif- 
ficult to be traced but easy to be conceived. 
Once it was granted that thanes might have 
the privilege of burial for their own Churches, 
it was inevitable, except under strong re- 
straint, that a new and powerful interest 
should grow up in rivalry to the Minsters; 



Historical. 



35 



and when that was working, the Norman 
Bishops came in with the strong desire to 
convert the ancient Minsters into 'regular' 
monasteries, such as had already grown up 
abroad. For this purpose it was necessary 
to divest the minsters of the cure of souls. 
It was in the power of the Norman Bishops 
to promote the change by a popular measure, 
most accordant with the policy of the con- 
querors, of granting the right of burial to 
every thane's Church. Such a method would 
inevitably accomplish the result; and yet 
would leave no record behind except the 
result. No record but the result remains. 
The ancient minsters became 'regular' mon- 
asteries, withdrawn alike from the cure of 
souls and the jurisdiction of the Bishop; and 
the thane's clerks became the parochial and 
diocesan clergy." 

From this sketch of the history of early 
Christianity, framed in order to display to 
view the place which the Cathedral held in 
the work of converting the heathen, and its 
relations to the Bishop, the clergy and the 



36 



Historical. 



diocese, we pass now to a matter somewhat 
more nearly related to our subject: the con- 
stitution, namely, by which the clergy of the 
Cathedral were associated and their affairs ad- 
ministered. While the Bishop and clergy of 
each of these institutions framed and enjoyed 
statutes of their own enactment, there was a 
powerful and well understood system of law, 
— what we may call common law, which these 
statutes could not contravene, and could mod- 
ify only in some particulars. This explains the 
fact of the similarity of the organization and 
administration of all cathedrals, throughout 
the Catholic Church before the Reformation. 

Our present purpose is with the common 
features of these institutions, and not with what 
may be peculiar to any one of them. And it 
is of the constitutions of these bodies as they 
were fixed and settled after the parish had 
become a recognized and most important in- 
stitution, that is to say, in the eleventh, 
twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and their vi- 
cissitudes afterwards down to our own times, 
rather than with what they were and what 



Historical. 



37 



they did in the earlier times, that we now 
shall speak. 

The distinctive title of the cathedral clergy 
is "Canon." It is from the same Latin word, 
taken in the sense of a list or catalogue of arti- 
cles or persons. It was the custom to put up 
in the porch of the church a tablet on which 
the names of its clergy were inscribed. By 
a process common in the growth of language, 
the name of this list or catalogue of the priests 
of the cathedral was given to them, and they 
were called Canons. Other explanations of 
the derivation of the word have been given, 
but this seems the most natural. It came 
into use in the sixth century. 

The number of the Canons was different 
in different cathedrals and at different times. 
There seem to have been at Wells in the 
tenth century only four or five, in the twelfth 
at first ten and then twenty-two; afterwards 
the number was raised to fifty. At St. Paul's, 
London, there were thirty, and at Lincoln, 
fifty-two. 

For a long time and until perhaps the mid- 



3§ 



Historical. 



die of the eighth century, all the estates of the 
Church were held together; and all of the cler- 
ical body, the Bishops, the Canons, and all the 
other clergy were supported out of the com- 
mon funds. These estates and funds were 
often spoken of as belonging to the Bishop. 
Thus at the council of Tours in 813 " the 
Canons and clerks of the cities " are spoken 
of as "dwelling in the Bishops' houses;" and 
it is provided that "food and clothing they 
are to receive according to the means of the 
Bishop." The Canons lived in community, 
with the Bishop at their head as the primary 
and active authority. This however does not 
mean that they lived in common: in England 
until at or very near the conquest each lived 
in his own house, and often he was married. 
But devoted to the same life, drawing their 
support from one treasury, and subject to 
the government of the Bishop, they formed 
what w T e may call a close corporation. After 
a time and speaking generally we may say 
in the twelfth century, the revenues of the 
churches being very considerably increased, 



Historical. 



39 



the number of the Canons enlarged, and the 
duties of the Bishop various and engrossing, 
the estates of the Cathedral were gradually- 
partitioned between them. The Bishop took 
to himself certain of them for his own use 
and administration, and left others to the 
Canons. He remained the active head of the 
body, vigorously and personally ruling it; 
but they no longer lived in his houses and 
out of his supplies; they had homes, a treas- 
ury and an administration of their own. It 
was the first step, and a natural step to take 
as the society began to become complex, in 
that long course of development which ended 
in the isolation of the Episcopate and the 
Cathedral. 

Then another step was taken in the same 
direction. Just as the common estates of the 
Church were divided between the Bishop and 
the Canons, the estates which had been as- 
signed to the society of the Canons were again 
divided into two parts: one part consisted of 
the common estates which were appropriated 
to the expenses of the general establishment; 



4 o 



Historical. 



the other part consisted of the other estates 
which were divided among the Canons, each 
individually having and holding his own sep- 
arate from his brethren. For instance, the 
Canons of Wells had, say four estates, A, B, 
C, and D. They retained the estate A as 
the property of the society for the common 
use and benefit; and they set the estate B 
apart by itself for one Canon; they set the 
estate of C apart for another Canon, and 
they set the estate of D apart for a third 
Canon. A Canon as a member of the body 
had an interest in the estate A in common 
with his brethren, and he also held the es- 
tate B separate for his own individual use 
and benefit. He was a member of the Ca- 
thedral corporation and as such enjoyed the 
corporate estates; and he w T as a corporation 
by himself and as such held his separate 
estate and applied its rents and profits to 
his personal use and benefit. On these sep- 
arate estates there were a Church, a school- 
house for the people of* the township in which 
the benefice was situated, and a house for the 



Historical. 



41 



residence of the Canon. It was the duty of 
the Canon holding the benefice to see to it 
that services were held in the Church and 
instruction given in the schoolhouse. He 
could do this either personally, living in his 
house and himself ministering and teaching 
on his estates; or he could employ another 
priest to do so for him. But in one way 
or the other he was bound to provide for his 
people. This duty was just as imperative as 
that which he owed to the Cathedral. These 
estates were called prebends from the Latin 
prczbenda, from prcebere a contraction of 
prcehibere which is made up of prce and 
habere. The holder of them was called a 
Prebendary. A Canon thus held a double 
office and had a double duty: he was a mem- 
ber of the Cathedral body and owed a duty 
to the Cathedral, and he held the separate 
benefice and owed a duty to the dependent 
population. The titles Canon and Prebendary 
are often applied indiscriminately. They are 
two titles of the same person; but accurately 
they describe two separate functions. The 



42 



Historical. 



style of Canon is the proper one when the 
Cathedral office is in view; the style of Pre- 
bendary when the parochial office is referred 
to. 

It was necessary that these great societies 
should have officers charged with special du- 
ties. In the early Church there was one 
Presbyter called Primicerius, who by reason 
of age, piety or wisdom was placed over 
others of his order, just as the Archdeacon 
was of the lowest order of the ministry and 
was over all the other deacons. The prin- 
cipal officer of the cathedral body after the 
Bishop was the successor of the Primicerius, 
and was called the Dean. Dean Milman in 
his Annals of St. Paul's, London, (p. 132) thus 
defines his duties and office: "The Dean had 
supreme authority; was bound to defend the 
liberties of the Church; was bound by his 
oath to observe and to compel others from 
the Canons down to the lowest officers and 
servants to observe the laudable customs of 
the Church, to watch over all the possessions 
of the Church and to recover what might 



Historical. 



43 



have been lost or alienated. He had au- 
thority also over all who inhabited the man- 
ors and estates; an authority which singularly 
combined the seignorial and spiritual juris- 
dictions. He was the guardian at once of 
the rights and interests of the poorer tenants, 
and, it may also be said, vassals, as well as 
of their morals and religion. The Dean pre- 
sided in all causes brought before the Chapter 
and determined them, with the advice of the 
Chapter. He corrected, with the advice of 
the Chapter, all excesses and contumacies. 
Lighter offenses of inferior persons were pun- 
ished by the Chancellor. The Bishop had no 
authority in capitular affairs, except on appeal. 
The Dean, for more heinous offenses, could 
expel from the choir, and cut off all stipends 
and emoluments, 4 with discretion, to the edi- 
fication, not the destruction, of the Church. 
These words are in Colet's unaccepted code; 
but the same spirit prevails throughout the 
older statutes, only in different forms. The 
Dean had a subdean to perform his functions, 
when abroad or incapacitated from duty, with 



44 



Historical. 



authority over all the inferior members of the 
Church, except the Canons." 

Next in rank to the Dean was the Precentor, 
who had charge of the choir of the Cathedral 
and all the services which were performed in 
it, and the schools of music. He directed 
the music and had the discipline of all the 
choristers and singers. His deputy, where 
he had one, was called the Succentor. 

Next after the Precentor came the Chan- 
cellor, who was charged with the care of the 
library, and the grammar and divinity schools. 
It was also his duty to lecture to the Cathe- 
dral clergy on divinity, and to organize theo- 
logical instruction given by others. In some 
places, as at St. Paul's, he had " charge of 
education, not only for the church but for 
the whole city; all teachers of grammar are 
subject to him." His deputy was the Vice- 
Chancellor. 

The last of the officers of the Chapter was 
the Treasurer. " The Treasurer was the re- 
sponsible guardian of the treasures of the 
Church, and ample indeed they were. Rel- 



Historical. 



45 



iques, first in value and importance; books, 
of which there is a curious catalogue; vessels 
of gold and silver, vestments, chalices, crosses, 
curtains, cushions, palls. He was answerable 
to the Dean and Chapter for the safe custody 
of all these precious things, and could not 
lend any of them without the consent of the 
Dean and Chapter. Under the Treasurer was 
the Sacrist. His office was to superintend 
the tolling of the bells, to open the doors 
of the Church at the appointed times, to dress 
the altars, and take care that the vessels and 
vestments were clean and in good order. The 
Sacrist was to take care that there was in 
the Church, even on the festivals, no crowd, 
noise, nor singing, neither talking, quarrelling, 
nor jesting, neither business nor sleeping. He 
was to maintain order, and conduct every one 
to his proper place." 

The manner of life in this society needs a 
word of explanation. The theory of it was 
always a life in common: it was not convent- 
ual but rather collegiate. At some Cathedrals 
the inclination was to the regular rule of the 



46 



Historical. 



monastic orders, and there were a common 
refectory, and a common dormitory; and 
there remain to this day the signs of a com- 
mon kitchen, buttery, brewhouse, bake house 
and mill. At others no attempt seems to have 
been made towards the monastic rule, but the 
Deans and Canons always had their separate 
houses. In both however a freedom always 
obtained beyond that permitted to regulars. 

We have seen that the Canons, and this 
term includes the dignitaries as well as the 
others, had duties to their Cathedral and their 
prebends, and incomes correspondingly derived. 
As was natural, some preferred to remain at 
'iieir Cathedrals and devote themselves to 
their duties there: these discharged their pre- 
bendary duties by deputing them to vicars 
who filled the place of their principals and re- 
ceived a part of their incomes. Others preferred 
to go to their prebends and devote themselves 
to their duties there, leaving their parts in the 
Cathedral service to the others. The tempta- 
tion to the latter course was strong. They 
who yielded to it enjoyed as Canons their full 



Historical, 



47 



share of the income of the common funds of the 
Cathedral body, and saved the expense of pay- 
ing vicars to supply their places at their pre- 
bends. So sharp was this temptation, that 
finally almost all gave themselves to their 
duties as Prebends and left their duties as 
Canons undone, so that the Cathedrals were 
forsaken. It became necessary to contrive 
some device for bringing them back to the 
Cathedral. There were always some who re- 
sided there and gave themselves to the Cathe- 
dral; but he who turned a deaf ear to it was 
plied by an appeal to his sordid nature: it 
was made his pecuniary interest to reside. 
As we have seen he received the income of 
his parish, whether he came near the Cathedral 
or not. It was now ordered that no Canon 
should share in the division of the common 
property of the corporation in any year, unless 
he had kept a certain term of residence. Thus 
at Wells, in the thirteenth century, there was 
a daily distribution of bread and money among 
all those members of the Church from the 
Bishop downwards, who happened to be pres- 



4 8 



Historical. 



ent. The residue of the corporate revenue, 
after this and all other outgoings were paid, 
was divided at the end of the year among 
those who had kept the full term of residence; 
namely eight months in the case of a dignitary, 
and six in the case of an ordinary Canon. The 
amount of a Canon's income was thus made to 
depend on the length of his residence during 
each year. One who never came near the 
Cathedral could get nothing beyond the in- 
come of his own prebend. One who resided 
for a time less than six or eight months, be- 
sides the income of his prebend, had his share 
in the daily distribution for as many days as 
he happened to be present. One who resided 
his full term received his share of the daily 
distribution for the time that he resided, — for 
every day in the year if it so happened, — and 
he was also entitled to a share in the overplus 
of the corporate property at the end of a year. 
Thus the Canon who resided got a larger in- 
come than he who stayed away. 

This change put an end to the evils of gen- 
eral non-residence; Canons were now as eager 



Historical. 



49 



to reside as they had formerly been to stay 
away. But this measure had another effect, 
perhaps not foreseen when it was adopted. 
The amount of the overplus divisable at the 
end of the year among those who resided the 
full term, depended of course upon the whole 
amount of residence of all the Canons; each re- 
ceiving a share larger or smaller, not simply 
according to the time he resided, but also ac- 
cording to the time all of his brethren resided. 
It thus became the interest of those who made 
their home at the Cathedral to prevent others 
from coming thither and sharing their in- 
comes. As the avarice of the clergy had been 
wrought on in order to induce residence, the 
same evil motive became active to prevent 
residence. A new device was now contrived 
for the purpose. Those who were already in 
possession of the houses and property of the 
Cathedral and on that ground claimed the 
right to regulate the matter, exacted of each 
Canon who came up a large payment before 
admitting him to residence: the sums so real- 
ized being applied partly to the Church, and 



Historical. 



partly to extravagant entertainments of the 
clergy. These expenditures were so large as 
to thoroughly accomplish the purpose for 
which they were required; and most of the 
Canons were kept out of the close. 

There was a good excuse for resorting to 
some measure regulating the matter. When 
it became the interest of the Canons to re- 
side, there was no certainty who or how many 
would be at the Cathedral at any one time. 
At one time there might be more than 
enough, at another not enough to serve the 
Church and fill the houses. This state of 
things caused great inconvenience and con- 
fusion. Gradually a regular system was in- 
troduced by which the duty of residence was 
laid on a fixed number of Canons who alone 
were to discharge all the ordinary duties at 
the Cathedral on behalf of the whole body 
All others were excluded from the right of 
residence, and their attendance at the Ca- 
thedral was permitted only on special occa- 
sions. This gave rise to the distinction which 
we will have occasion to notice hereafter be- 



Historical. 



tween Canons residentiary and Canons non- 
residentiary. 

There was another body of the Cathedral 
clergy who cannot be passed over, namely, 
the Vicars. When non-residence became com- 
mon it was required of each Canon that he 
provide a clergyman who should take his 
place in his absence; and the rule sprang up 
making it his duty to always have a deputy. 
Just as the Dean had his subdean, the Pre- 
centor his Succentor, and so on, each Canon 
had his deputy who was called his Vicar. 
There were therefore as many Vicars as there 
were Canons. When the Canons forsook the 
Cathedral for their prebends, the Vicars carried 
on the services and work perhaps as efficiently 
and decorously as those whom they repre- 
sented. An old writer of those times seek- 
ing to show the superiority of the monks 
over the secular Canons says, that the former 
praise God with their mouths, the latter 
through their Vicars. There is a story of 
Thomas a Becket, when Archbishop of Can- 
terbury, sending a man with a bull of excom- 



52 



Historical. 



munication against the Bishop of London, who 
went to St. Paul's Cathedral on Ascension Day 
and on that great festival found the officiat- 
ing Priest to be neither Bishop, Dean, nor 
Canon, but only a Vicar. As each Vicar was 
appointed by a Canon to be his deputy, he 
looked upon him as his master. He was 
paid by his Canon and lived in his house. 
When his principal came into residence he 
gave place to him, seeking shelter where he 
could. But the Vicars of each Cathedral hav- 
ing common employment, interests and life were 
naturally drawn together. First, they acquired 
estates separate from those of the Canons; then 
they had houses of their own, dormitories, re- 
fectories, and chapels; at last unmarried and 
living a purely collegiate life they were formed 
into a college: so that as there was the cor- 
poration of the Dean and Canons, so there 
was a corporation of the Vicars. They were 
now no longer each the deputy of a Can- 
on, but were the assistants of the residen- 
tiaries in the services and work of the Ca- 
thedral. Then a distinction came in; there 



Historical. 



53 



were Priest Vicars and Lay Vicars. But the 
latter were not merely singing men paid each 
as stipendiaries, but members of the col- 
lege with equal rights with their clerical 
brethren. 

There was also another office, that of the 
Archdeacon. It was diocesan. In England 
he was not a member of the Cathedral body, 
but in Italy he had his stall in the choir and 
seat in the Chapter. 

We come now to notice the great society 
of the Cathedral. The Chapter was the cor- 
poration. It held the title to the property, 
alienated it and was impleaded in the courts 
of law. Its style was, the Dean and Chapter 
of such and such Cathedral Church, of such 
and such city: as the Dean and Chapter of 
St. Andrew's Cathedral Church of Wells; the 
Dean and Chapter of the Cathedral Church 
of the blessed Virgin St. Mary of Litchfield. 
Its corporate members were the Dean and 
Canons. At first all the Canons, those who 
were residents and those who were not, had 
equal rights of attending and speaking at 



54 



Historical. 



and voting in the Chapter. And to this day 
the case is the same at many Cathedrals, as 
for instance at York. When all are sum- 
moned the Chapter is called the Greater 
Chapter; when the residentiaries meet in the 
Chapter house the convention is called the 
lesser or hebdomidal Chapter. In some ca- 
thedrals, as at Wells, there is a broad dis- 
tinction between the residentiaries and non- 
residentiaries. It was customary for the Dean 
to summon the latter to meetings of the Chap- 
ter only when a Bishop was to be elected. 
By and by the custom hardened into a law, by 
which they were excluded except on such oc- 
casions. And yet a non-resident was installed 
with the same ceremony as a resident; the 
formula is that he shall have " voice in Chap- 
ter and stall in choir;" and when he becomes 
a residentiary no new ceremony is had to in- 
vest him with the new office and dignity. In 
the case of the Bishop is the like inconsist- 
ency. When he is enthroned he is installed 
both in choir and Chapter house; he is pre- 
sented to the chief seat in the latter, is 



Historical. 



55 



designated in the statutes as the principal 
head of the Chapter, and reverence is paid 
him in the choir. And yet unless he held 
a prebend he could not in his Episcopal ca- 
pacity attend the meetings of the Chapter, 
except on special occasions and when visit- 
ing the Cathedral. The Vicars, Choristers 
and others of the Cathedral body were not 
members of the Chapter. 

The institution had now become a highly or- 
ganized body; theoretically it was as perfect 
as human ingenuity informed by large experi- 
ence could contrive. There was first the cen- 
tral figure of the Bishop vested with the func-. 
tion of the Apostleship in the Church of God: 
the fountain of honor and authority. There 
was a body of clergy circling round him, who 
resided with him, and sustained him by their 
advice and services in his government of the 
diocese in all its various concerns, spiritual, 
educational, and charitable, and who carried 
on the constant and ornate worship of the 
temple. In the next circle was a larger body 
not in constant attendance at the Cathedral 



56 



Historical. 



but connected with it by official rank and oc- 
casional duty. Beyond these was ranged the 
great body of parochial clergy, by whom the 
banner of the Church and the cross of Christ 
was upheld in the midst of the people and the 
stress of the battle against the foe was well 
borne. The spectacle fills the vision of every 
churchman: he feels the strength of the vigor- 
ous body and he is thrilled with expectancy. 

We saw at the outset of this sketch that 
the polity of the early Church was diocesan. 
There was the one Bishop, the source of all 
authority, and the one Cathedral, the seat of 
the administration of the whole Dei Civitas. 
He stood in the midst of his clergy who were 
gathered about him there, and personally, di- 
rectly and specially ordered the whole and 
every part of the work throughout the whole 
city and dependent territory. All the priests, 
deacons, and lay helpers, men and women, 
went forth and returned as he commanded, 
and did what he set them to do. This was 
the purely diocesan system. 

When the work outgrew the one center, 



Historical. 



57 



the parish sprang up. It was a separate, 
detached, and local institution. Subject at 
once to the visitation of the Bishop and the 
precedence of the Cathedral, it had a certain 
independence in the control of its own affairs, 
and was a center of work within its narrow 
boundaries. This was the parochial system. 

It did not displace the Cathedral any more 
than the priest of the parish ousted the Bishop. 
The great central institution remained with the 
Bishop and its special body of clergy. Here, 
as the chief magistrate in his capital, he ruled 
his diocese. He did not do so personally and 
directly nor in the circumstances and details 
of administration, but he still held a general, 
temperate, active and vigorous sway. Nor was 
the Episcopal power arbitrary. The Bishop 
in his administration had the assistance of 
his Cathedral clergy. They were his council 
to advise him and relieved the burden of his 
office by their labors. This is the Cathedral 
system. It is the diocesan system, not pure 
and simple, but qualified by the parochial 
system. 



58 



Historical. 



We return now to our task of tracing the 
history of the institution. 

As the Cathedral had come to perfection in 
its organization, through many changes which 
took place little by little and by a natural 
process, so now it had before it many vicissi- 
tudes. Indeed, when at the height of its de- 
velopment it carried within it the seeds of 
decay, and when at its best it began to fail. 

There was a tendency in the middle age of 
which we are now speaking, which is very in- 
teresting to trace in its operations. It was 
a general tendency pervading every depart- 
ment of social life, and has left its mark deep 
in modern and especially in English institu- 
tions. It is perhaps the most striking social 
phenomenon of those times. I mean the uni- 
versal impulse in every force in society to seek 
after independence of all other forces. No 
sooner did men come together for a common 
end than they claimed the right of association 
without interference. No sooner did an offi- 
cer exercise an authority however foreign tc 
his office than he assumed a settled and ex- 



Historical. 



59 



elusive jurisdiction over the matter. Every 
industry, trade, and profession was organized 
in a corporate society, regulated by rules of 
its own making and consolidated by protect- 
ing its members and crushing intermeddlers. 
You may see particular instances in the cor- 
porate privileges of cities, of inns of court, 
and of colleges and universities, all of which 
withdrew themselves from the ordinary jur- 
isdictions and set up their own exclusive of 
all others. You may trace it in the history 
of the several courts of law, which once united 
in the aula regis became independent tribu- 
nals. The monasteries denying the Bishop's 
jurisdiction and the rector gathering into his 
hands the tithes of his parish and holding 
them as an estate on theories drawn from 
feudal law, are further and familiar examples 
of the same process. 

It was but natural that the Cathedral body 
under the strong influences of this general 
tendency should aspire to corporate unity and 
independence, drawing away from the dio- 
cese and its clergy on the one side and 



6o 



Historical. 



seeking exemption from Episcopal control on 
the other. Circumstances favored the preten- 
sion. Before the eyes of the members of 
these bodies was the example of the mon- 
asteries: they never tolerated on the part 
of the Bishop any share or oversight of the 
administration of their affairs. It was only 
under stress of circumstances that they ad- 
mitted him within their cloisters, and they 
dismissed him from their gates as soon as 
he had discharged his function. Often they 
sought consecration for their abbots so as not 
to stand in need of any Episcopal service from 
one not of their order. With such an exam- 
ple before their eyes, it would be strange in- 
deed if the ambition of the Dean and Chapter 
were not inflamed by the spectacle. 

And the Chapter had become a corporation 
which could think, feel and aspire for itself. 
When the Canons dwelt in the houses, were 
fed at the table, and clothed with the means 
of the Bishop, and when afterwards Bishops 
and Canons were supplied from common funds, 
there was mutual dependence and intimate re- 



Historical. 



61 



lations. But we have seen that a time came 
when the Canons had estates of their own. 
It is but the part of human nature that with 
houses and lands, benefices and estates, food, 
clothes, and money of their own, they should 
assert their independence of him and seek 
in every way to strengthen it. At last the 
Chapters became as jealous of the Episcopal 
prerogative as the monasteries were. 

And on the other side the circumstances 
were favorable to the growth of the new 
pretension. The Bishop was one of the great 
barons of the realm. As Bishop he owed 
duties to the Church, but as a lord he owed 
duties to the crown. He sat in parliament 
and in the councils of the king, and was very 
often called to the great offices of chancel- 
lor, treasurer, secretary, and ambassador to 
foreign courts and to Rome. It was but natu- 
ral to give to the more shining office the share 
of time and service which was fairly due to 
the sacred function. When he was not occu- 
pied by his civil duties, he was beset by 
temptations of another sort. As one of 



62 



Historical. 



the barons of the realm he was possessed 
of great manors, sumptuous palaces, beauti- 
ful gardens, and wide hunting grounds. To 
these estates he could retire and enjoy the 
ease, leisure and luxury which contrasted 
strongly with the severity and contentions of 
life within the Cathedral close. Ambition on 
the one hand and love of pleasant ease on the 
other inclined the Bishops to withdraw to 
their own palaces, and leave the estates, in- 
terests and administration of the Cathedrals 
in the itching hands of Deans and Chapters. 

And so it came about under these in- 
fluences, active on both sides, and under the 
pressure of a general political tendency of 
the times, that the Chapter realized for it- 
self all its ambition, and became a detached, 
separate and isolated corporation. The de- 
partments of administration were divided be- 
tween the Bishop and his Chapter: he came 
to manage the affairs of the diocese without 
reference to the advice of the Chapter: the 
Chapter came to manage the affairs of the 
Cathedral with little reference to the author- 



Historical. 



63 



ity of the Bishop. From being the head of 
the Chapter, the Bishop came to have less 
authority in his own Church than in any 
other in the diocese: from being the con- 
stant advisers of the Bishop in his admin- 
istration, the Chapter were alienated from 
the Episcopal function and the administration 
of the diocese. Thus the whole of that 
scheme of organization and administration 
which excited our admiration lapsed into 
desuetude. 

It is necessary at this point to make a 
general correction, or at least modification, 
of the above account, without which the 
history of Cathedrals would involve us in 
inconsistencies at many points. The clergy 
of the days of which we have been speaking 
were divided into two distinct classes. One 
was those who lived in the world; that is they 
had their own houses, were not uncommon- 
ly married, and were bound by no vows but to 
obey the laws of the Church. They were call- 
ed Seculars. The other class was the Monks. 
They took upon themselves the vows of pov- 



6 4 



Historical. 



crty, chastity, and obedience, and thereby 
became bound to a rule of life, for which 
reason they were called Regulars. When the 
Bishop first went forth to plant his See in 
his diocese, and selected the clergy who 
should go with him to be his companions, 
he adopted one or other of these classes at 
his pleasure. Accordingly, one Bishop formed 
his Chapter of Seculars, who were called 
Canons, while another formed his Chapter 
of Regulars, and his Cathedral was a monas- 
tery. Thus at London, York, Exeter, Salis- 
bury, Wells, Lincoln, Litchfield, Hereford, 
and Chichester the Chapters were of Secu- 
lars; while at Canterbury, Winchester, Wor- 
cester, Durham, Norwich, Rochester, Ely, 
and Carlisle the Cathedrals were monasteries. 
In the latter the head of the Chapter w T as 
an Abbot or Prior instead of a Dean. Ex- 
cept in the respect of discipline, Cathedrals 
served by monks did not greatly differ from 
those served by Seculars. In the former the 
offices of Precentor, Chancellor, and Treasurer 
did not exist, nor were the stalls endowed 



Historical. 65 
* 

with prebendal estates. If this had been 
all of the matter we could hardly afford 
it the small space which we have given it. 
But there is a great historical event which 
must be noted in any such sketch as this. 

When Henry the Eighth sent forth his in- 
junctions for the suppression of the monas- 
teries, he made no exception of the Cathedrals 
which were served by monks. There was no 
reason for excepting them; for having excluded 
the Bishops they were practically not unlike 
other monasteries. The monks having been 
driven out of these Cathedrals, the king was 
obliged to found new Chapters composed of 
secular priests. These institutions of Henry 
were constituted upon the general plan of 
others of the class. There were the Dean 
with the usual powers, and the Canons all of 
whom were to reside in the close for at least 
six months of the year; their number varying 
at different Cathedrals from four to twelve. 
There were no non-resident Canons; but in- 
stead there were honorary Canons who had no 
duties in the Choir or voice in Chapter. There 



66 Historical. 

i — — 

were no Vicars; but minor Canons discharged 
the same functions, and the lay members of 
the choir were called lay clerks. The duties 
of Precentor were devolved on a minor canon: 
the offices of Chancellor and Treasurer were 
abolished. It would be a needless repetition 
to point out the details of the differences be- 
tween the Cathedrals founded by Henry in place 
of the monasteries, and those which we have 
particularly described. One broad distinction 
cannot fail to at once arrest attention. The 
constitution of the new bodies was more simple 
and their relations to the Bishop and the dio- 
cese were less intimate. Constructed when 
these institutions had detached themselves 
from the Bishop on the one side and the dio- 
cese on the other, it was but natural that they 
should be erected into a place and a service 
even more isolated, special and peculiar than 
ever before. These creations of Henry are 
called Cathedrals of the new foundation: the 
others Cathedrals of the old foundation. 

Before we stopped to make this correction, 
we saw that the Canons had become separated 



Historical. 



6 7 



into two classes: there were those who left 
their prebends to Vicars and resided at the 
Cathedral most of the time, and there were 
those who left the Cathedral and resided on 
their prebendal estates. The cause of the 
separation was the fact that the Canons had 
two offices and two sources of income. When 
the distinction between the residentiaries and 
non-residentiaries became fixed, the former 
still retaining their prebends, began to find 
attractions there, and to withdraw them- 
selves from the duties which formerly they 
had preferred and to which they were com- 
mitted. And so it came about that the very 
Canons who had been specially charged with the 
services and work of their Cathedrals and w T ere 
called residentiaries, became, notwithstanding 
their title, in point of fact non-resident. In 
order to supply or pretend to supply the de- 
fect, so that the Cathedral should not be en- 
tirely forsaken the rule was adopted that 
every Canon should live in the close three 
months in the year. The terms of resi- 
dence were arranged by the members of the 



68 



Historical. 



Chapter, or were appointed by the Dean. In 
this way the force of clergy in residence at one 
time was reduced to the minimum. 

There is something almost ludicrous in the 
insignificance to which the Chapter was re- 
duced. At the Cathedrals of the old foun- 
dation the numbers of the Canons varied from 
eight at some to twelve at others. Even this 
trifling number was seldom called together; 
and save at an election to the bishopric of the 
appointee of the crown, they were all hardly 
ever at one time within the close. When in 
the course of the terms appointed for the 
Canons one alone w r as in residence, as often 
happened, he and the Dean could hold a Chap- 
ter in the stately Chapter house, where, with 
the Bishop at their head, the thirty, forty, fifty 
Canons had of old thronged in affluent state 
and ceremonious dignity and deliberated upon 
the interests of the Church. 

And yet it is hardly fair to put this forth as 
a picture of Cathedral life even in those days. 
There was the goodly numbers of Vicars Choral 
or Minor Canons with the Choristers, who in 



Historical. 



6 9 



company with the Dean and the one or two 
Canons in residence maintained morning and 
even song of exceeding beauty, while upon 
Sunday the anthem rilled choir and nave with 
the notes of melodious praise. It needs but to 
remember the familiar verses of the Elegy writ- 
ten in those very days to vindicate the right 
of the Cathedrals then to be. In keeping alive 
the true music of the sanctuary, even in their 
low estate they gave to the Church a sufficient 
service. The long list of those who have at 
once filled Cathedral stalls and adorned the 
annals of literature and scientific theology 
prove that these institutions have not been 
altogether unserviceable, even when they have 
been inactive in the ways in which they once 
were useful to society and the Church. 

We pass over a great period of time during 
which the constitution of the Chapters under- 
went few if any changes, and their place in the 
polity of the Church was not enlarged. In 
1840 an act of parliament was passed reorgan- 
izing them all on one plan: those of the old 
foundation and those of the new alike. It is 



7o 



Historical. 



a very voluminous statute; we need here to 
notice only a few of its provisions. 

(1) The number of the Canons, that is those 
who had active duties in connection with the 
Cathedral, was cut down from twelve, the 
number of residents at some, and from eight 
at others. At Canterbury, Durham and Ely 
there were to be six; at Winchester, five; at 
all the others four. Residence was to be, of 
the Deans eight months in the year, and of 
each Canon three months. The Deans were 
to be appointed by the crown and the Canons 
by the Bishop. 

(2) The endowments of the prebends not 
residentiary, and also of certain dignitaries, 
that is the Sub-Dean, Chancellor, Vice-Chan- 
cellor, Treasurer, Provost, Precentor, and Suc- 
centor, were suppressed as separate estates; 
those officers retaining only such stipends or 
emoluments as were accustomably paid to the 
holder thereof out of the general revenues of 
the Cathedral. 

(3) In one section it is recited that " where- 
as, it is expedient that all Bishops should be 



Historical. 



71 



empowered to confer distinctions of honor 
upon deserving clergymen," and it is enacted 
that "honorary canonries shall be hereby 
founded in every Cathedral Church in Eng- 
land in which there are not already founded 
any non-residentiary prebends, dignities or of- 
fices, and the holders of such canonries shall 
be styled Honorary Canons, and shall be en- 
titled to stalls and to take rank in the Cathe- 
dral Church next after the Canons, and shall 
be subject to such regulations respecting the 
mode of their appointment and otherwise 
as shall be determined on by the authority 
hereinafter provided, with the consent of the 
said Cathedral Churches respectively, and the 
number of such Honorary Canonries hereby 
founded in each Cathedral Church shall be 
twenty-four. " This section leaves the Pre- 
bendaries or non-resident Canons in the Ca- 
thedrals of the old foundation, but without se- 
parate estates: the Honorary Canons in those 
of the new foundation where there now were 
Prebends serving the same purpose. 

(4) The respective Chapters were to appoint 



72 



Historical. 



the Minor Canons, of whom in no case were there 
to be more than six nor less than two. No one 
of them could hold another benefice more than 
six miles from his Cathedral, and his income as 
Minor Canon was not to exceed one hundred 
and fifty pounds. The term Minor Canon in- 
cludes "every Vicar, Vicar-Choral, Vicar-Priest 
and Senior Vicar, being the member of the choir 
in any Cathedral or Collegiate Church." 

(5) Archdeaconries could be endowed by 
the annexation of an entire canonry, or a por- 
tion of the income thereof subject to several 
limitations. 

It is perhaps hardly worth while to revie'w 
this plan, and remark that the clergy serving, 
a Cathedral are the Dean, who is to reside at 
his Church only three-fourths of the year, one 
Canon resident at a time, and tw T o or at the most 
four Minor Canons or Vicars ; or that the Chap- 
ter having the actual administration in its hands 
consists of the Dean and four or six Canons. 
Certainly a very small force as compared to the 
number of Cathedral clergy when those insti- 
tutions were at the height of their usefulness 



Historical, 



73 



and development. In the Cathedrals of the 
old foundations the Canons non-residentiary 
take their turns in preaching in the Cathedral, 
for which they receive a small compensation. 
They have no other duties except when sum- 
moned to the greater Chapters. 

The reduction of the number of canonries 
was felt to be wrong in principle and evil in 
effect. To remedy the mischief, in 1874 an 
act was passed for the establishment of ad- 
ditional canonries, and the conversion of a 
non-residentiary prebend into a canonry and 
"for accepting and assigning for the endow- 
ment of the same any endowment in money 
or land given by a private person or persons." 
Under this gracious permission a way is open 
for the piety of this generation to restore to 
the Cathedrals such numbers of Clergy as may 
be needed for the work which the Chapter may 
propose to itself. Nor is it altogether a vain 
hope that the day may come when these 
venerable Churches will enjoy their pristine 
glory. 

The act passed in 1875 providing for the 



74 



Historical. 



erection of the Bishopric of St. Albans con- 
tained no express or particular provision for 
a Cathedral or a Chapter, but they are referred 
to as in contemplation, and Honorary Canons 
were provided for. The act of 1876 providing 
for Truro empowered the queen in council to 
assign to the new " Bishopric as a Cathedral 
Church the Parish Church in Truro subject 
to the rights of the patron and incumbent 
of such Church." And as in the act of the 
preceding year, the Cathedral and Chapter 
are anticipated, and provision is made for the 
usual number of Honorary Canons. In the 
act of 1878 authorizing the erection of the 
Bishoprics of Liverpool, Newcastle, Southwell, 
and Wakefield, like provision is made for the 
use of Parish Churches as Cathedrals and for 
Honorary Canons. In the same year an act 
was passed " to make provision for the foun- 
dation of a Dean and Chapter for the Bish- 
opric of Truro," etc. By itself it is not 
very instructive. It provides that, with funds 
yielding ;£ 1,000 per annum for the Dean and 
£300 for each of four resident Canons, the 



Historical. 



75 



queen may, by order in council, erect the cor- 
poration: meanwhile, whenever funds yield- 
ing £3°° are duly vested for a residentiary 
canonry, it may be erected. The statutes 
are to be made by the queen in council. The 
crown is to have the patronage of the Deanery, 
and the Bishop of the Canonries. 

With these insufficient statutory powers, 
but with a wisdom and vigor all his own, 
the Bishop, now elevated to the primacy, or- 
ganized his Chapter. In an address delivered 
by him in 1877, he prophesies that at some 
day "some grand munificence shall arise, or 
self-denial shall combine, to found in the 
beauty of holy order the great cathedral 
offices," until which time there will not fail 
among churchmen the devotion to discharge 
the duties apart from the emoluments. He 
thinks the decanal stall may bide its time 
until the men and funds to be governed de- 
mand a governor. An Honorary Chancellor 
has been secured for the instruction of divin- 
ity students. The most interesting of the 
institutions founded in connection with this 



7 6 



Historical. 



new cathedral is an association of Missioners. 
In Truro Diocesan Kalendar for 1881 is this 

passage: 

" Cathedral Missioners. Sanctificatio in vcri- 
tatc. The object of this association is to pro- 
vide a staff of preachers, who, not being bound 
by parochial or other ties, may be entirely at 
the disposal of the Bishop for any work to 
which he may see fit to send them, at the 
call of the parochial clergy. Besides under- 
taking and arranging for missions (technically 
so called), where the Bishop and parochial 
clergy think desirable, they will endeavor, as 
far as their numbers may permit, to give 
courses of sermons or lectures, at populous 
centers, to supply spiritual ministrations dur- 
ing the absence or sickness of incumbents, 
and to help in the gathering of candidates 
for confirmation, in the formation of branches 
of the church society for the advancement of 
holy living, or other societies approved by 
the Bishop, in the instruction or supervision 
of lay preachers, in the promotion of mission 
chapels, and in other works which aim at 



Historical. 



77 



the spiritual and moral improvement of the 
people. There is as yet no endowment of 
any kind; and, in view of increasing work 
and numbers, it is felt necessary henceforth 
to ask that the travelling expenses of a Mis- 
sioner's visit may be defrayed. This may be 
done either by collections at the time, or by 
devoting yearly offertories or subscriptions to 
the maintenance of the association. The staff 
at present consists of the following members: 
Arthur James Mason, M.A., Fellow and Late 
Assist. Tutor of Trinity College, Cambridge, 
Canon of Truro, and Examining Chaplain to 
the Bishop, — Francis Edward Carter, M.A., 
Trinity College, Cambridge, Prebendary of 
Endellion. Missions have been held since 
last October at St. Dominick, South Hill 
and Callington, Constantine, and Mawgan- 
in-Pyder." 

In the address above referred to the Bishop 
says: "It is no true reverence to follow up 
old lines without extending them. They give 
dignity if we know how to develop them; 
but if we will not step beyond them on vital 



73 



Historical. 



call, we make trammels for ourselves, and are 
most unlike those old founders whom we pro- 
pose to imitate. Travels and observations up 
and down this country, inquiry, reading, con- 
versation, and reflection, have convinced me 
that the work antiently expected of the old 
prebendaries, who preached up and down the 
diocese, seconding, aiding, enforcing the work 
of the parish priest at his own request, is no 
less required than ever. The tired and weary 
and often lonely clergymen asks it; the people 
ask it; their condition asks it. I should be no 
true shepherd here did I veil the truth from 
such an assemblage as this. And sure I am 
that the chaotic religious beliefs, and the in- 
explicable severance and gulf which in some 
places exists between moral practice and fer 
vent religionism, do absolutely need this iden- 
tical work to be done. One Missioner at- 
tached to the Cathedral will be unus pro 
umltis, will stand single-handed to represent 
the many mission preachers of the old idea. 
But I believe he will not want for helpers. 
I believe that the mission chapels, fast multi- 



Historical. 



79 



plying, with their lay readers, who will need 
some help, some cautions, some training, will 
be deemed by us all to offer great scope for 
such work — to say nothing of parochial mis- 
sions, which have so happily affected the well- 
being of many Parishes. And I am sure 
that neither he nor any other man, who puts 
his shoulder to the wheel to place a Cathedral 
body in a position to do the special works 
which must go undone unless there is such 
a body to do them (even though it takes 
years to develop it and though beginnings 
are to some men tedious), w T ill ever want your 
good wishes, your liberality, and your avail- 
ing prayers." 

In very few of the Irish Cathedrals are there 
resident Canons or Precentors, Chancellors or 
Treasurers. The non-residentiaries have only 
a titular office. The Dean is save in name 
only the Rector of the Parish; he has cure 
of souls; he is assisted by one or two, in a 
very few instances by more Priest Vicars. 
The Cathedral is in fact a parish Church. 

We pass now from the Mother Church of 



8o 



Historical. 



England to her daughters in the colonies 
and in our own country. Departing from the 
course of things in the regions which were 
sanctified by the footprints of the Apostles, 
the Anglican Church when planted beyond 
her island home was organized without the 
Cathedral. In Canada the royal patents by 
which the Bishops were appointed seem to 
have made no reference to their Cathedrals. 
But that by which Dr. Fulford was appointed 
Bishop of Montreal ordained and. declared 
" that the parish church called Christ Church 
in the said city of Montreal should thence- 
forth be the Cathedral Church and the See 
of the said Bishop of Montreal, and his suc- 
cessors in the said See." And it is reasonable 
to suppose, in the absence of accurate infor- 
mation, that the like course was followed in 
the case of other Bishops. From all which 
it may be stated, that after a considerable 
growth of the Church the course in the 
Provinces was to superimpose the Cathedral 
upon a parish Church. All that was act- 
ually accomplished was the erecting in its 



Historical. 



Si 



proper place in the Church of the Bishop's 
throne with the right vested in him of oc- 
cupying it. 

How far the crown was competent to in- 
trude into parish Churches even for this pur- 
pose, would be an interesting question, if it were 
ever raised. But this being conceded, as it 
has been, there remains unoccupied the wide 
field of the relations of the Bishop on one 
side, and the rector and parish on another 
side, and of the diocese, its synod and ad- 
ministrative boards on the third side. These 
relations have in some cases, perhaps in most 
cases, been fixed in writings called " statutes 
of agreement " between the Bishop of the 
one part, the rector of the second part, and 
the rector and churchwardens of the third 
part, all acting in their respective corporate 
capacities, for themselves and their succes- 
sors. Shortly stated, the stipulations of these 
agreements are, 

i. As to the Rector, that he shall be re- 
sponsible for the due, and orderly performance 
of divine service, subject only to such general 



82 



Historical. 



directions in that behalf as the Bishop may 
issue to the diocese, and for the execution 
of all duties pertaining thereto, either as a 
Cathedral or as a parochial church, subject 
to the Bishop's control only as a Rector in 
England is subject to his Bishop. The fab- 
ric of the church is under the control of the 
Rector and Wardens according to the laws in 
force in Canada. 

2. As to the Bishop, that he may at all times 
take such part in the services and preach at 
such times as he may desire, notice of from 
four days to one week being given to the Rec- 
tor of his intention to preach on any partic- 
ular occasion. At visitations, confirmations, 
ordinations, meetings of diocesan and provin- 
cial synods and on occasions of public thanks- 
givings and fasts he has charge of the services; 
appointing the preachers, assigning seats to 
the clergy, subject to the rights of the Canons 
and Archdeacons to their stalls in the upper 
tier of the choir. He may invite strangers to 
preach or officiate with the concurrence of the 
Rector and upon clue notice. He is to have 



Historical. 



83 



the use of the rooms in the Cathedral for such 
meetings as he may desire to hold. 

3. All orders and directions concerning- the 
Church, either as a parochial Church or as a 
Cathedral are to be given to the subordinate 
officers through the Rector or in his absence 
through the Wardens. 

4. Assistant Ministers are to be nominated 
to the Bishop by the Rector, but shall not 
officiate until they have received the license 
of the Bishop, as is customary in the Church 
of England generally. The Rector of the Par- 
ish is the Dean of the Cathedral and as such 
he is installed and he bears that title. 

It will be observed that no provision is made 
for Canons or a Chapter. The Bishops have 
generally appointed Canons from the Priests 
of the Diocese having cures or engaged in 
education. They have stalls in the Cathedral 
but no other connection with it. In some 
Cathedrals certain parochial clergy are Can- 
ons, ex officiis, who hold a position much like 
that of Honorary Canons in England. In a 
few Dioceses they are organized into a Chap- 



8 4 



Historical. 



ter, but no active or practical duties are de- 
volved on the body. 

At Toronto a long step has been taken in 
advance by a Bishop whose unaffected earnest- 
ness and practical wisdom remind us of the 
first Bishop of Truro. In his address to his 
synod in 1881, Bishop Sweatman entered some- 
what largely into an apology for Cathedrals in 
the colonies. Remitting the public and mu- 
sical services of the Church to a secondary 
but by no means unimportant place, he pic- 
tures to us the Cathedral duly " constituted 
and officered as the center of union to the 
whole diocese; the center of education, learn- 
ing, and pulpit power; the center of spiritual 
life and Christian charities; the center from 
which radiates missionary effort." And then 
he sets forth the practical workings of the sys- 
tem, in a passage so simple, direct, satisfying, 
and convincing, that we cannot forbear to quote 
it at length. "But I have hardly yet justi- 
fied my grounds in expressing so sanguine an 
expectation as to the great advantages that 
would attend such an establishment. Let me 



Historical. 



illustrate them more distinctly. Supposing 
that I had resident in Toronto, say four Can- 
ons, men of thorough practical parochial ex- 
perience, of true missionary spirit, of a high 
order of pulpit power, of intense sympathy, and 
above all full of earnest spiritual life (for they 
would need to be all this); the value of such 
a body of men would be incalculable, as coun- 
cillors and advisors. But, — here is the point 
I wish to bring out — a mission in the diocese 
is, for some cause, evidently in an unprosperous 
condition; the clergyman complains that he 
can not obtain support from the people; or the 
Church is losing ground, and so forth. I di- 
rect one of my Canons to go to this place, to 
'enquire into what is wrong, to stay a week, 
two weeks, or three weeks, to rouse up the 
people, and put new life into the Church's 
work. A young and inexperienced clergy- 
man meets with difficulties he does not know 
how to deal with; he needs advice and guid- 
ance; another of the Chapter is sent to help 
him, to put him in the way of doing his 
work better; with the loving words and ma- 



86 



Historical. 



ture wisdom of an older brother to give him 
confidence and cheer. Or a clergyman writes 
me for help in an emergency; his parish is in- 
vaded by a new sect, preaching strange doc- 
trines and drawing his people away from the 
faith; he had spent himself in labors to coun- 
teract the mischief, but finds that it is an 
unequal task to cope with single-handed, or 
his arguments are exhausted, and he wants 
another mind to reinforce him with fresh ar- 
guments. Here is help for the emergency — 
a well learned, and well equipped, and zeal- 
ous member of the Cathedral Staff ready to 
go to the rescue. 

" Have I justified my assertion ? I feel sure 
that every earnest and faithful parish clergy- 
man will confess that such a system, by which 
the clergy might occasionally be stirred up 
to more diligence, cheered in their isolation, 
aided in their difficulties, by a visit from a 
brother such as I have described, would go 
a long way to break down the Congregation- 
alism, to awaken the spiritual torpor of the 
people, to arouse to activity the missionary 



Historical. 



87 



indifference, to systematize the ineffective dif- 
fusion of forces, — the chief difficulties and evils 
under which we suffer. To carry out this sys- 
tem fully will require means and time; but a 
small beginning may be made. I shall not 
touch the question of means: but I cannot 
forbear a concluding remark, that it is tanta- 
lizing to be taunted with aping titles, and dig- 
nities, and at the same time to feel that no colo- 
nial diocese ever had so nearly within its grasp 
the power to erect and maintain a real living 
Cathedral establishment, with its active Chap- 
ter and staff of officers, as the Diocese of To- 
ronto with its richly endowed Church in the 
capital." 

In January of this year the Provincial Leg- 
islature passed "An Act to incorporate the 
Dean and Chapter of the Cathedral of St. 
Alban the Martyr, Toronto," the first sec- 
tion of which was as follows: 

"There shall be and there is hereby con- 
stituted and established in the city of To- 
ronto, in the province of Ontario, a body 
politic and corporate, in connection with the 



88 



Historical. 



Church of England in Canada, under the name 
of ' the Dean and Chapter of the Cathedral 
of St. Alban the Martyr,' which corporation 
shall consist of the Right Reverend the Bishop 
of Toronto for the time being in connection 
with the said church, who shall be the Dean 
of the Chapter hereby incorporated, and the 
Archdeacons and Canons of the diocese of 
Toronto for the time being, and eight lay 
members, four to be elected by the individual 
clerical members of the said synod of the dio- 
cese of Toronto, and four to be elected by the 
individual lay members of the said synod 
in synod assembled, and such lay members, 
when so elected, shall hold office during life 
or until resignation or removal of residence 
from the diocese of Toronto; the said Bishop, 
Archdeacons, " Canons, and lay members of 
the said Chapter shall be the governing body 
of the said corporation, except only that the 
powers of the lay members of the said Chap- 
ter shall be limited to the management of 
the temporalities of the said corporation." 
Churchmen in the United States will look 



Historical. 



8 9 



with interest to what may be done under 
this act towards the solution of the ques- 
tions presented by the subject of Cathedral 
organization. 

In our country everything that has been 
done in the way of organizing the institution 
of the Cathedral has been tentative. All 
who have taken a hand in the work have 
been careful to say so. They have been 
conscious that the conditions of the problem 
are novel, and that institutions of another 
age or another country may not be suited to 
our needs. To draw off on paper a scheme 
of organization after the pattern of the Chap- 
ters of the fourteenth century is easy enough: 
almost any mere copyist could do it. The 
amplitude of the machinery, its complex de- 
tails, the variety of the uses it could serve, 
the charm of the venerable past, render the 
system very attractive. But all quite under- 
stand that to realize it is on many accounts 
impossible. Even if it were practicable to set 
such a scheme going here, it would not be 
long before changes would take place so 



go 



Historical. 



many and so great, that it would not be 
recognized in the institution which would 
grow out of it. Accordingly every plan that 
has been proposed has been set forth simply 
as convenient under the circumstances, to 
be tried for a time and changed as ex- 
perience shall suggest. This doing pres- 
ently what seems to answer for the present 
and waiting on the future for what shall 
prove to be best, gives to the history of 
these attempts their interest. 

And, besides, these tentative schemes are 
being planned and tried in many different 
places without concert and without much 
mutual or consistent action. This is neces- 
sarily so, because each diocese acts by itself, 
and under the influences of the opinions of its 
own Bishop and its own circumstances. For 
all the Bishops to draw up one plan of Ca- 
thedral organization to be put in operation 
everywhere, even if they could harmonize 
their views, would be impracticable, because 
of the various and diverse circumstances of 
their dioceses. What would be apt to the 



Historical. 



9i 



conditions of one would be unsuited to those 
of another. But whether such action be prac- 
ticable or not, it is not the way in which the 
problem is being worked out. Accordingly 
many plans differing more or less in princi- 
ple and differing largely in details are now 
undergoing trial and working towards a de- 
gree of completeness. It is not to be ex- 
pected that in the end one common system 
will be developed, any more than it is prac- 
ticable to adopt one at the outset. We are 
to expect that the Cathedrals of the future 
will be unlike in many things and will do 
their work in many modes. As each works 
its way towards what it shall be, one cannot 
help tracing its course with an interested cu- 
riosity and gathering much that will assist 
those who may direct any other development. 

In the progress heretofore made in the his- 
tory of Cathedral organization in the Amer- 
ican Church, three periods may be pretty 
clearly distinguished. The Cathedrals first 
planted here were much like the Canadian 
and the recent English institutions. They 



9 2 



Historical. 



were parish churches with the Bishop's chair 
set up in the chancel or choir. This was all. 
The Cathedral was superimposed upon the 
parish. The corporation remained as before 
" the Rector, Wardens, and Vestrymen of" 
the Church. It retained the legal title and 
exclusive administration of the property; and 
whatever agreements it may have made, grant- 
ing rights to the Episcopate, it could deter- 
mine them at its pleasure. Usually the Bish- 
op was promised a right to occupy his seat, 
to preach, to direct the ritual, and to use 
the building when and as he saw fit; but as 
the promise was in law beyond the corporate 
competency of the vestry the right was held 
upon sufferance. There was a certain moral 
guarantee of permanence. The precedence 
of the Church as the Cathedral and the 
frequent attendance of the Bishop at its ser- 
vices, and the use of the building on inter- 
esting occasions, on the one hand, and the 
force of an agreement once made, a with- 
drawal from which raises a suspicion of de- 
linquency, on the other, give a pretty strong 



Historical. 



93 



support to the arrangement. Still it is felt 
that there is an infirmity in it. At the same 
time the arrangement has good precedent. 
We have seen that it is what obtains in 
Canada, and in several of the newly elected 
dioceses of England. We who are but a hand- 
ful can hardly presume to despise what the 
English Parliament has thought adequate for 
the first years of St. Albans, Truro, and Liv- 
erpool, although neither there nor here has all 
been done that is desired. Examples of the 
Cathedrals of the class above described are 
St. Paul's, Buffalo, and St. Paul's, Indianapolis. 

To the same period are to be assigned the 
cathedrals, examples of which are Sts. Peter 
and Paul, Chicago, and Our Merciful Saviour, 
Faribault. They are independent of the par- 
ish, the property in respect both of its title 
and its administration being in the Bishop. 
This independence is accounted by many an 
important advance upon the arrangement 
above described. And no doubt it is so far 
as certainty and permanency go. But we 
place all of these institutions in the same 



94 



Historical. 



category notwithstanding this point of dis- 
similarity, because of their radical consistency. 
They are all recognized in the constitution 
or canons of the diocese as Cathedrals, and 
the officers of some have rights ex officiis; 
such as seats in the annual council. But 
beyond this these Churches have little to 
distinguish them from parish Churches. They 
have no Chapter or function not local to the 
building. The diocese as a body has no act- 
ual organic relations with them. What they 
are, what is special, particular, and distin- 
guishable in them may be easily seen from 
the advocacy by aid of which they have been 
established. It was that the Bishop ought 
to have his own Church, in which he should 
stand forth as the High Priest, and as vested 
with the primary function of the Episcopate. 
As administrative agencies of the diocese, as 
containing, reflecting, representing or serving 
it as an organic body, their claims were not 
urged. They were to contribute to the splen- 
dor and efficiency of the Episcopate, but did 
not aspire to be the focus and point of union 



Historical. 



95 



of the diocese. They are episcopal and not 
diocesan institutions. 

It is right to speak particularly of Faribault 
because so much has been done there close by 
the Cathedral and by the Bishop himself, that 
it is an apt illustration of the character of the 
class of which we are speaking. That the 
purely Episcopal character of the institution 
may be clearly apprehended, we quote a de- 
scription # of it which Bishop Whipple gave 
the writer in a letter written for the purpose. 
He says the Cathedral " should be solely in 
the Bishop's care, that he may set forth such 
a ritual as may be a model for the diocese; 
it needs only such machinery as will help 
him." ...... " In my absence the assist- 
ant pastor of the Cathedral congregation is 
virtually the Dean and has entire control. 
The church and congregation support him. 
It has no machinery whose friction may fetter 
me. It gives me all I ask and I work on as I 
can. God has blessed us, and so I like the 
plan." 

Having justified by these words the propriety 



9 6 



Historical. 



of characterizing Our Merciful Saviour, of Fari- 
bault, as an Episcopal as distinguishable from 
a diocesan institution, we proceed to the point 
to which we wish to call attention. Besides 
building his Cathedral, Bishop Whipple has 
established at this place his Divinity, Boys', and 
Girls' Schools. The ample and beautiful struc- 
tures in which the two first are housed and 
which is now building for the third, the abun- 
dant equipment in all the appliances.of educa- 
tion, and the high standard of instruction of 
these institutions, put each of them at the very 
head of the schools of the Church. Taken all 
together they are a galaxy with which no 
other diocese in this country has anything 
comparable. 

Now it is natural to say that the Cathedral 
with these schools about it realizes in a very 
high degree the true character of such institu- 
tions. But that is the very point; each one of 
these schools is disconnected from the Cathe- 
dral: it is organically a separate, independent, 
individual establishment. It has a board of 
trust and government of its own: it follows its 



Historical. 



97 



own way by itself: it serves its own ends alone. 
There is a single point of contact in the Bishop 
who is the head of each, but otherwise each is 
isolated from the others. And with the Ca- 
thedral neither has any organic connection. 
The pupils of all attend certain of the services, 
although each school has its own very beautiful 
chapel; but none of all their teachers has by 
virtue of his office and of right any place or 
function or service there. In the midst of these 
splendid establishments, the Cathedral stands 
the grand church of the Bishop, by his will 
and under his discipline gathering under its 
ample roof all of these scholars because they 
are his children. So that it will be seen how 
these Cathedrals even in the midst of many 
other Church institutions are strictly personal 
and only Episcopal. 

The second period in the course of the de- 
velopment of the Cathedral was when Chap- 
ters were organized. The Episcopate remains 
in the institutions of this class, the primary, 
active, and central function, but it is no longer 
the sole, only and unqualified authority. The 



98 



Historical. 



Bishop holds his office apart, sharing it with 
none, but within the precincts of the Cathe- 
dral exercising it by the aid of his presby- 
tery. All Saints, Albany, New York, and 
Grace, Davenport, Iowa, are examples of 
this class. Bishop Doane set forth a clear 
exposition of the principles on which his 
Cathedral was organized in his address to 
the convention of 1875. He says: "In Janu- 
ary last, the general Chapter, provided for 
by the constitution, was called together. 
It is intended to be, and is, a thorough and 
widely distributed representation of the whole 
diocese; consisting as it does of persons chosen 
by the convocations, as in the case of Archdea- 
cons; and by the convention, as in the case of 
the Members of the Standing Committee, of the 
Board of Missions, of the Deputation of the Gen- 
eral Convention, and the Secretary and Treas- 
urer of the diocese; and besides these, of the 
Rectors of the two older churches in Albany. 
This is the electoral body, choosing, on the 
Bishop's nomination, the clerical, and on their 
own motion, the lay members of the Cathedral 



Historical. 



99 



Chapter; and its approval is necessary to any 
alteration of the Cathedral constitution. It is 
virtually the convention of the diocese out of 
session; because it consists of those whom the 
convention honors with its confidence, by plac- 
ing them in its most important positions of trust. 
And while it is large enough, consisting of 
forty-eight members, and varied enough, fifteen 
of its members being laymen; it is yet small 
enough, to secure the possibility of its as- 
semblage. This body assembled in Troy, a 
year ago, and acting under the constitution, 
elected the four principal persons, two Can- 
ons and six laymen, as members of the 
Chapter." " Representatively speak- 
ing, in its governing body, it is the diocese ' in 
petto;' and representatively speaking, in its 
congregation, it is the place of worship for all 
churchmen of the diocese when they are here, 
and for all churchmen here, who belong to no 

parish." " But the strong point of the 

case is the close connection between the fact 
of a Bishop, and the fact of a Cathedral, which 
belong really to each other; not in sentiment 



IOO 



Historical. 



or imagination, not as foisting old fashioned 
notions upon modern times; but as illustrating 
an inherent principle of the Episcopate. The 
Cathedral Church will be the place for the 
gatherings of the clergy, with the Bishop; the 
building, for the solemn official acts of the 
Bishop, in ordinations and the gathering of 
synods; the Church that shall be the bond of 
unity, and the point of meeting, among clergy- 
men otherwise narrowed and separated into 
personal interests alone; the Church, whose 
frequent services and celebrations of the Holy 
Communion shall make somewhat real, what 
no Bishop can be willing to allow to be forgot- 
ten, the permanent, or at least life-long, pas- 
toral relation that exists between himself, as 
the chief earthly paster, and the pastors and 
people of his diocese. It will be the central 
point, to which the hearts of all the diocese 
may turn, as the place where 1 prayer is wont 
to be made,' and in which, whether present 
or absent, they are daily remembered before 

the throne of grace." " It will be the 

nucleus, about which, as strength and ability 



Historical. 



IOI 



increase, may gather godly and learned men, 
able to care for the training and examination 
of the candidates for holy orders, and to pre- 
pare themselves to meet, by constant study, the 
incessant shiftings of that old opposition to the 
truth, which by frequent and rapid changes of 
side, seems all the while to be something new. 
It will be the religious and spiritual source and 
home, for the training and refreshing of those 
who may desire, as lay men or as women, to 
devote themselves to the closer service of God. 
It will be the house of worship and religious 
instruction, for the children who may be gath- 
ered from the distant parts of the diocese or 
country, to go back, carrying with them what 
they have gained here, for the enlivening and 
enriching of their homes. It will be the root 
from which, in time, will grow up the houses 
of mercy, of shelter, of education, which find 
their natural origin in the Episcopate." 

In these pregnant sentences and in others 
following, for which we have not room, we 
have presented to our vision a grand con- 
ception of a very grand establishment. All 



102 



Historical. 



who for a moment incline to join in condemn- 
ing or ridiculing the Cathedral as a pretty 
theory, a plaything, a fossil and relic of a 
dismal past, ought to read and try fairly to 
realize the scheme of Bishop Doane. With 
a full appreciation of its splendor, we must 
remark upon its organic constitution. This 
is to be said in the first place in its behalf as 
regards the special point we purpose to make: 
it is recognized in the constitution and pro- 
vided for in the Canons of the Diocese; its 
primary authority called the Greater Chapter 
is almost entirely composed of diocesan offi- 
cers; its place and work and service is above 
and outside those of a parish among parishes; 
they are essentially diocesan. There may be 
lacking in the choicest and strongest of the 
Bishop's words the distinctness of Archbishop 
Benson about the need and use of a band of 
missioners, or as we say missionaries, and of 
Bishop Sweatman about the assistance the Ca- 
thedral clergy may give to their parochial 
brethern, but all those agencies may fairly 
be brought within the circumscription of the 



Historical. 



103 



Albany scheme. So that the diocesan char- 
acter, relations and functions of the Chapter are 
well conceived there. But looking to the or- 
ganism, it is plain to see that it is an indepen- 
dent, detached, isolated, local body. There 
is a shadow of something broader in the con- 
struction of the General Chapter; but it is with- 
out reality. While the personnel of the General 
Chapter is diocesan its functions are too lim- 
ited to communicate that character to the 
Cathedral. It is simply an electoral body; 
it has no active or administrative or visitorial 
power. It convenes only to elect Members of 
the lesser Chapter and to attend the Bishop on 
special occasions. No organic connection of 
practical efficiency between the Cathedral and 
the diocese can be traced through the Gener- 
al Chapter. The Chapter proper, is composed 
of the Bishop, Dean, Precentor, Chancellor, 
Treasurer, four minor Canons, and six lay- 
men, none of whom except the Bishop has any 
other diocesan relations or duties or rights than 
any clergyman or layman has. The body is not 
charged with the care of the missions of the 



104 



Historical, 



diocese, and whatever it attempts in that ser- 
vice must be in subordination to the Board of 
Missions. It has not the administration of 
the funds or property of the diocese, but they 
remain in the hands of special committees. 
The schools and hospitals organically are as 
independent at Albany as at Faribault. And 
lastly, there is no duty on the Bishop's part 
to ask the Chapter for advice, nor on its part 
to give him the same when asked for it: in no 
sense is it the Senate of the diocese. That it 
is a local institution appears from a section of 
the constitution, to which, rather than the ex- 
position from which we have quoted, we should 
look for a definition of its work. Section 2 
of Article I of the Constitution is as follows: 
"The Chapter is charged, under the di- 
rection of the Bishop, to advance the mission- 
ary work of the Church in and about the city 
of Albany, to maintain a constant and well 
ordered worship of Almighty God, to found 
and uphold Christian schools, and to begin 
and sustain every practicable work of Chris- 
tian charity." 



Historical. 



105 



We are therefore bound to say that the Al- 
bany Cathedral in its structure and essential 
organism is as independent as a parish, in re- 
spect of diocesan administration and is local to 
the see city in respect of diocesan service. Of 
its moral influence upon the diocese and of 
the diocese upon it, and of the good it does to 
all people in the diocese by what it is, and 
what it does in the see city, we are not now 
speaking. 

When Bishop Perry went to Iowa he found 
himself in the midst of many happy circum- 
stances for organizing his Cathedral. His 
predecessor had acquired a large and beauti- 
ful estate in the city of Davenport, upon which 
he had erected buildings for a college and a 
divinity school. Funds for the endowment 
of these institutions had been gathered, and 
a very competent and ample Episcopal resi- 
dence had been erected. But the work of 
Bishop Lee's life with which we have to do 
was the building of the Cathedral. This was 
a beautiful and imposing structure upon the 
same grounds. By the express conditions of 



io6 



Historical. 



the benefactions with which it was built it 
was devoted to diocesan, in distinction from 
parochial purposes and control. By the ex- 
press request of the diocesan convention it 
had been consecrated as a Cathedral. In a 
document of the most formal and solemn 
nature Bishop Lee had declared it conse- 
crated as Grace Cathedral. In many public 
acts he impressed it with a diocesan character, 
and when his work on earth was ended he 
passed it on to him who should come after 
him, charged with that sacred and special 
trust. Nor w T as this all. There were in Dav- 
enport two parishes with all the rights of pre- 
occupancy. The property of one was exten- 
sive and eligible: its Church was a large, mas- 
sive and well appointed structure erected by 
a devoted wife in memory of its first warden. 
Bishop Lee in one of his addresses to his con- 
vention had spoken with much fullness and 
anxious hope of the Cathedral then building, ' 
and its uses when finished, and then proceeded 
to say that his desire was that the two par- 
ishes of the city should form " one united par- 



Historical. 



107 



ish under some acceptable arrangement as a 
diocesan or Cathedral church;" adding, " the 
church must be a diocesan or Bishop's church 
by the conditions of the donations." It was 
with such a legacy, sanctified by the words and 
wishes of his venerable and revered predecessor, 
that Bishop Perry entered upon his work. By 
judicious measures he soon obtained the free 
consent of the members and authorities of the 
two parishes to a union with and in subordi- 
nation to the Cathedral. The way being thus 
cleared, he laid out the plan of the Cathedral, 
its Chapter and work as follows: 

Retaining in his own hands the title to 
the property as security for the performance 
of the trust upon which he holds it, he has 
erected a Chapter, at the head of which is 
the Dean, with the usual powers of such 
officer. The present Dean is the head of 
the college and of the theological school. 
There is a senior Canon, to whom is com- 
mitted the pastoral care of the congregation. 
There are also the Canons, whose special 
duties are at the churches heretofore parish 



io8 



Historical. 



churches, and in the schools. " Curators of 
the Cathedral " are laymen charged with the 
temporalities, who collect and disburse the in- 
come, applying it to pay the stipend of the 
senior Canon, the maintenance of the fabric 
and of the services as ordered by the Dean 
and Canon, and the diocesan charges and 
assessments. These form the Chapter. Its 
work is, first, to maintain the worship in the 
Cathedral in rich, abundant and appropriate 
services; secondly, to conduct the work of 
the parish churches and missions in the 
see city; thirdly, to carry on the several 
schools; fourthly, to extend missionary efforts 
into the diocese as fully and as far as is 
possible. Everything that can be said in be- 
half of the scheme of the Cathedral at Al- 
bany is true of that at Davenport. The 
details of the scheme are not so fully set 
down in a written constitution and statutes; 
more is left to circumstances as they may 
arise; but even in the particulars of the plan 
the expectation is the same. In one respect 
the Davenport Cathedral has the advantage 



Historical. 



of her sister of Albany, that in her is cen- 
tered the whole work of the Church in the 
see city. 

But what we have said of the Albany 
scheme in respect of the relations of the 
Cathedral and the diocese, is also true of 
the Davenport scheme. In Iowa the dioce- 
san administration is distributed among sev- 
eral boards, or committees, as the Board of 
Missions, the Trustees of the Funds of the 
Diocese, and the Trustees of the Episcopate 
Funds. It is not proposed to bring their 
duties and powers within the jurisdiction of 
the Chapter. The Chapter has no place 
whatever in the administration of the dio- 
cese. Its diocesan character consists only 
in its services, which it yields through its 
example, its schools, and its accidental and 
limited missionary efforts. All this cannot 
be over estimated; but the fact remains, 
that the Cathedral system of Iowa does not 
embody the diocesan system. 

A third step in the progress of the Cathe- 
dral system in the American Church was 



HO 



Historical. 



taken when it was organized in Nebraska. 
When Bishop Clarkson came out to his jur- 
isdiction, the circumstances were untoward, 
as regards the planting of a Cathedral. At 
Omaha, the capital of the territory, there was 
a parish which, for the size of the town, was 
large, influential and flourishing, and it had 
a property comparatively speaking of value. 
It answered fully the needs of the commun- 
ity. To have organized a Cathedral would 
have dissipated energies already sufficiently 
taxed; nor were the means at hand for the 
purpose. Bishop Clarkson had no choice but 
to adopt Trinity Church as his Cathedral. 

All that was attempted or proposed when 
he first fixed his see in Trinity Church was 
what we have described above, as the initial 
period and plan of Cathedral organization. 
There was the Bishop's chair in the choir, 
but there was no Chapter. By agreement 
between him and the vestry, he had the 
right to preach, and use the church at his 
pleasure, regulate its ritual, and in case of 
vacancy in the Rectorship, to nominate five 



Historical. 



in 



Presbyters, one of whom the vestry should 
elect to fill the place. The arrangement 
was that of the first period which we have 
described, namely, of the Cathedral super- 
imposed upon the parish with all the limita- 
tions which the term implies. 

In 1872 the annual council of the diocese 
passed a canon, organizing a Chapter. The 
scheme therein laid out has been in force 
ever since, its principle remaining unchanged, 
although the details have been somewhat 
developed. So far as the local institution 
and its work are involved, the plan is much 
the same as that at Albany and Davenport. 
But this system goes farther. The Cathe- 
dral Chapter is made up of the Bishop, the 
Dean, three resident Canons, two of whom 
are the heads of the diocesan schools, six 
honorary Canons and four lay delegates, 
elected upon the Bishop's nomination by 
the council, two delegates from the vestry 
of the Cathedral parish, and the officers of 
the diocese; namely, the Standing Committee, 
the Chancellor, Secretary, Registrar and Treas- 



112 



Historical. 



urer, and a Treasurer of the Chapter. More 
than two-thirds of the body are selected by 
the diocesan council. 

But the character of the Chapter is to be 
sought rather in its functions than its per- 
sonnel. It discharges the duties which in 
many dioceses are committed to a board of 
missions, to trustees of all of the funds and 
property of the Church and of the schools, 
and to all other boards and committees. To 
it has been conveyed in trust the property 
of several parishes and missionary stations, 
including parsonages as well as Churches. 
Its honorary Canons are rural Deans, and 
Presidents of the convocations. Its regular 
meetings are quarterly, and at them full re- 
ports from its several Committees, Officers 
and Canons are made and discussed and 
measures are framed. The Chapter is in the 
most actual and practical way the adminis- 
trative organ of the diocese. The Cathedral 
of Nebraska is the diocesan system, only 
partially qualified by the parish. 

This plan has been adopted in several 



Historical. 



US 



other dioceses and missionary jurisdictions, 
its details being in some cases modified. 
As established at Denver it has an ideal 
perfection; the defects in the system at Oma- 
ha having been wholly remedied. Bishop 
Spaulding had a parcel of land which his 
predecessor had bought at an early day. 
It was eligibly located, and of ample size. 
The parish of St. John in the Wilderness 
owned lots in the very midst of the city on 
which was the first Church, of capacity and 
character unequal to the needs of the city. 
The Bishop and the vestry agreed upon a 
plan for the erection upon the property of 
the former of a Cathedral. He conveyed it 
by a very carefully drawn instrument upon 
trusts therein expressed, securing his rights 
as Bishop and head of the Chapter, and the 
proper uses and administration of the estates 
for a Cathedral forever. The result is a build- 
ing with seats for eighteen hundred persons, 
an institution with jurisdiction of all work in 
the city and territory, and a service not sur- 
passed for power, beauty, and variety by that 



U4 



Historical. 



of any Church in this country. The congre- 
gation elects at Easter a certain number of 
laymen, who are called lay Canons, and are 
members of the Chapter and have charge 
of the temporalities of the Cathedral. In 
plan of organization it is the ideal Cathedral. 
The days it has already numbered are few. 
If any device of man can be sure to realize 
its purposes, the years to come will see 
Denver demonstrate the full value of the 
Cathedral system. 

We readily anticipate an objection which 
may naturally be made to what has been 
said of the diocesan feature of this system. 
That objection is, that it is practically quite 
the same thing whether the administration 
of the diocese be entrusted to several bodies, 
as Boards and Committees, or to one body, 
as the Chapter, so long as the members of all 
of them are elected by and are responsible 
to the council; in either case the government 
is diocesan. But the objection misses the 
point. Our contention is not for the diocesan 
system; in the American Church that is not 



Historical. 



matter of debate; it is settled by the constitu- 
tion of the General Convention. You have the 
diocesan system. You may have it in an ad- 
ministration distributed among several distinct 
bodies; or you may have it in an administra- 
tion by one body holding and exercising the 
whole quantum of delegated authority. But 
if you are to have the Chapter, by it the 
diocese should be administered. The dioce- 
san system is properly expressed in the Ca- 
thedral system. That is the theory of the 
Nebraska scheme. 

We have to-day in the American Church 
Cathedrals constructed on three plans. The 
first, are those based on the Episcopal office. 
The second are those based on the See prin- 
ciple and have Chapters. And the third, are 
those which embody the diocesan system, 
having Chapters which are concerned at once 
with local interests, and are charged with the 
duty of assisting the Bishop in general ad- 
ministration. 

It is interesting to observe that these three 
classes have succeeded each other in the course 



u6 



Historical. 



of the development of the Cathedral idea in 
the American Church, in the order above 
mentioned and according to the degree of 
their complexity. First there was simply 
the Church with the Bishop's chair; then 
came the Cathedral for the see city; and 
lastly we have the Chapter aiding the Bish- 
op in administering the diocese. The view 
which we have given of them has therefore 
been a narrative of events in their chrono- 
logical order. 



III. 



DIFFERENCES. 



TT is a long way we have come: even from 
the days when " Elders were appointed 
in every city " to these common days of ours. 
In our hurry we have noted only a very few 
of the points along the road and given even 
them only a hasty glance. But we have 
gathered up some interesting facts. One is, 
that until the children of the Church of Eng- 
land went forth to the colonies the institution 
of which we have been speaking was always 
and everywhere in the Catholic Church; 
wherever there was a Bishop there was a 
Cathedral. A strong argument in its behalf 
may be drawn from this fact. The simple 
circumstance that any institution or custom 
or mode of social life exists leads us to sup- 
pose that there is some reason for it, and 



n8 



Differences. 



when we find it in many countries, and in 
different ages, and under various circumstances 
we feel very sure that its right to be has 
a good, deep and natural cause. No argu- 
ment in behalf of the divine origin and right 
of Episcopacy carries to the average mind 
such certain conviction, as the fact that his- 
tory bears most certain testimony to its ex- 
istence in the first days and thence to the 
present in all parts of the world, and that 
the succession of Bishops may be authenti- 
cally traced in an unbroken.- line from the 
Apostles. Why should not the contention 
in behalf of the Cathedral drawn from uni- 
versal prevalence carry the same force with 
it ? We read the history of the Church and 
find it everywhere and in all ages. Why 
should we not assume that there are the 
best, deepest, most natural causes for its 
existence ? 

Besides this is another interesting fact, 
that during the successive periods of its 
history Cathedrals have in all parts of the 
Church at the same time undergone much 



Differences. 



119 



the same changes. In Asia, Africa, and 
Southern Europe, in all which regions there 
was a common civilization, and in Britain 
where society was rude, primitive and rural 
during the first centuries, the Cathedral was 
the focus of the purely diocesan system. 
Then a change was everywhere wrought by 
processes somewhat unlike, but coming to the 
same end, that nafnely, of establishing the pa- 
rochial system and thereby modifying the 
place and work of the Cathedral. Afterwards 
the institution took on a complex and highly 
organized form, and at last it began to fall 
away from its primary rank, use, service, and 
value. All these changes took place in all 
countries at times and in ways so nearly the 
same that one narrative of them will measur- 
ably answer for all branches of the Catholic 
Church. 

This coincidence is not only curious: under- 
neath it is a great truth. In the civil history 
of the Christian era we are astute to trace 
a development of social and political ideas 
and institutions on the same lines, in much 



120 



Differences. 



the same periods of time, among all nations 
of the European civilization; and we refer the 
phenomena to great and efficient forces of 
general operation. And, on the same prin- 
ciple, we are justified in assuming that the 
Cathedrals of different peoples also have a 
common history, because of extensive, radical, 
and vigorous influences, and that they are 
great social institutions. 

There is another fact more nearly related 
to our present purpose. While Cathedrals 
have undergone much the same changes and 
had the same general structure in all coun- 
tries, when we go to particulars we see many 
differences. It is of practical importance to 
notice this carefully. If it were essential to 
the integrity of these institutions that they 
have one form, structure, constitution, and 
service, they could not have changed from 
age to age. What they were under the primi- 
tive and purely diocesan system they would 
be to-day. They could not have accommodated 
themselves to changing circumstances. Let 
us note briefly some of these differences. 



Differences. 



121 



We recall the fact that in a Cathedral of 
the middle age, served by secular Canons, 
there were a Precentor, Chancellor, Treas- 
urer, and Prebends; and that in Cathedrals 
served by Regulars and in the Chapters 
founded by Henry there were no such digni- 
taries. Until recently Llandaff had no Dean 
or resident Canons, the Precentor being the 
head of the Chapter and the Cathedral being 
served by minor Canons. At St. Asalps there 
were no dignitaries but the Dean, and no 
resident Canons, the Cathedral being served 
by Vicars Choral. Many of the Irish Cathe- 
drals have no resident Canons and are simply 
Parish Churches, the Dean being the Rector, 
with cure of souls and with a certain con- 
gregation. We have stated the facts about 
Truro, but the situation there is temporary. 
Notwithstanding the loss of its first Bishop 
it is safe to expect that his plans will be car- 
ried out vigorously, and that its Cathedral 
will become one of the most efficient as well 
as highly organized in England. 

After what we have said a few pages back 



122 



Differences. 



of the organizations in Canada and our coun- 
try, the points in which they agree and the 
points in which they do not agree with the 
English model need not be restated. The 
whole system in the American Church is yet 
in a formative state. 

Other differences are to be noted arising out 
of difference in situation and consequently in 
the use of English Cathedrals. Some are in 
small towns, others in great cities. Ely has 
only five or six thousand people while her 
Cathedral is one of the largest, most beautiful 
and efficiently served of any in the kingdom. 
What contrasts do Manchester and Liverpool 
present. In the former a collegiate and in the 
latter a parish Church has been utilized as a 
Cathedral. The duties which must primarily 
engage the attention and labors of the clergy 
at the country village and in the crowded 
metropolis must in the nature of things be 
very unlike. The calm and sequestered Ely 
is a place for worship, study and contempla- 
tion. The thronged streets and wretched 
alleys of Manchester and Liverpool call loudly 



Differences. 



123 



for the activities of charity. Coming to our 
country, Ely is repeated in Garden City and 
Manchester in Chicago. When the Cathedral 
of Long Island shall come into the enjoyment 
of the splendid endowments which have been 
promised, it will find its chief work in schools 
and in worship. And when the day comes, 
as it surely will, when a like munificence shall 
illustrate the Cathedral of Illinois its active 
service will be among and for the millions. 
These differences in the situation and the ap- 
propriate service of Cathedrals have induced 
the most diverse views of their proper func- 
tion. The Bishop of Carlisle, long Dean of 
Ely, says that worship, contemplation and 
study is their proper work. The recent Bish- 
op of Truro, now Archbishop of Canterbury, 
gives the first place to the education of can- 
didates for orders and to a body of unattached 
clergy called Missioners. The views of each 
have doubtless been affected by his personal 
experience. 

It goes without saying that the structure 
of the Cathedral body should In its details 



124 



Differences. 



consist with its circumstances. No one pat- 
tern will answer for all. What is apt and good 
for one may not suit another. 

What then is a Cathedral ? How does it 
differ from any other Church ? The name is 
derived from the Latin. The seat of a Bishop 
in a Church was his Cathedra. In and from 
this his seat he especially exercised his office. 
He had but one seat in his diocese which was 
in his Church; he had none in parish Churches. 
Soon what was peculiar to one Church gave it 
a distinctive name and the Bishop's Church 
was called a Cathedral. Properly the word 
is an adjective and qualifies Church. Speak- 
ing exactly we should say Cathedral Church, 
Cathedralis Ecclesia. In common parlance 
the adjective is used as a noun, and dropping 
the word Church we say Cathedral. 

The Cathedral then is the Church in which 
is the Cathedra, Sedes, see, or seat of the Bish- 
op. It is his Church. He is sometimes said 
to be the pastor, and sometimes the rector 
of his diocese. And his Cathedral has been 
called the Parish Church, and the matrix 



Differences. 



125 



of the diocese. These words may be not al- 
ways descriptive of the fact, but they convey 
one idea, that the Cathedral is the Bishop's 
Church and has relations of some sort to and 
connection in some way with the diocese. 
Many suppose that it must be a large and 
beautiful building; that the service must be 
choral, and that the clergy must be numerous. 
It is natural to expect all these of a Bishop's 
Church. But the Anglo-Saxon Bishops gen- 
erally built their churches of wood, small 
in size and rude in construction. And they 
were truly Cathedrals. The choral service 
has long since ceased to be peculiar to Cathe- 
drals, and one Priest serving at the altar with 
his Bishop may be the only clergyman. Size 
of building, mode of service, and number 
of clergy are accidents, accessories, circum- 
stances; they are not essential to the Ca- 
thedral. What is essential is that the Church 
should be the peculiar place of the Episcopal 
function. 

But when the Bishop has planted his see in 
any Church, other things naturally and al- 



126 



Differences. 



most necessarily gather around it. Especially 
will be collected a number of clergy to whom 
he will resort for aid and advice in carrying 
on his work. The Episcopal function is the 
primary and a number of clergy, larger or 
smaller, who assist him in the administration 
of the diocese is the secondary element of a 
Cathedral. 

Having said all that is needful and our space 
will allow of the structure of these bodies, 
we pass on to inquire, what are the proper 
functions of Cathedrals ? What is their spe- 
cial place in the organization of the Church ? 
What service are they fitted to render over 
and above that of parish Churches ? What 
are they for and can they do ? 



IV. 



THE CHAPTER — THE BISHOP'S COUNCIL. 

TT is not easy for us nowadays, to conceive 
what the Christian community was in the 
first century of the Church. Society accepts 
the Catholic faith. A respectful deference on 
all hands is paid to what is Christian. Men's 
hearts may not be regenerate, but their man- 
ners are gentle. The consequence is, that 
resistance is relaxed: those who are within, 
the Church are under no strain in standing 
up against those who are without. If we go 
back to the early days and strive to realize 
the intensity of the life of the early Chris- 
tians, we have no experience of our own to 
appeal to. 

The Christian community was a body of 
men and women to the soul of each of whom 
had come a new light. It was a revelation let 
down from above before their very eyes; a 



128 The Chapter — The Bishop's Council, 



revelation for the first time in all the world's 
history opening up a view into the unseen 
world and the awful mysteries of human des- 
tiny. While yet it was a new, strange, start- 
ling, wondrous vision, it profoundly stirred 
all who once looked upon it. And it came 
in the tale of a life and a death so full of 
pathos that men's eyes overflowed and their 
hearts melted at the recital. But without, 
society was unutterably corrupt and vile; sen- 
suality, superstition, atheism were on every 
hand. Popular amusements were altogether 
ungodly; the gravest thought, the noblest 
aspirations were of the earth earthy and 
tainted by evil contact ; the national re- 
ligion which multiplied the divinities, deified 
the emperors, and denied the one only and 
true God was abhorrent. Against this wicked- 
ness it was the mission of the early Chris- 
tians to protest with their lifeblood. Their 
Lord of lords, and King of kings, was the 
eternal Trinity worshipped through the incar- 
nate Son; and in proportion as the Roman 
State was leagued to uphold its adulterate 



The Chapter — The Bishop's Council. 129 



cultus, so the Christian commonwealth was 
banded around the universal Cross. Their 
very depths of veneration and passionate- 
ness of devotion made these men and wo- 
men recoil from the touch of the vile world, 
and drove them together and bound them by 
the most sacred ties. Their society, isolated 
in the midst of the multitudes, took a cor- 
porate character and had a polity of its own, 
and was in truth Civitcts Dei. 

In this sacred family the Bishop was the 
father, and all the rest were his children. It 
was not only love they gave him for his ten- 
derness and wisdom, but veneration also for 
his high office and his character which the of- 
fice sanctified. Some pages back we saw how 
he guided the work to which all were de- 
voted; that, namely, of converting the world. 
Now let us ask how this holy man must have 
carried himself among his brethren. He shared 
their intensity of devotion; he shrank with 
them from the misery without; he awaited the 
same destiny that they foresaw for themselves; 
and besides, ever in his ears rang the voice of 



130 The Chapter — The Bishop's Council. 



Jesus, "Feed my sheep;" "By this shall all 
men know that ye are my disciples, that ye 
love one another." He was their ruler. Did 
he lord it over them? Being what he was, 
and they what they were, all brethren togeth- 
er, he could not help but take them, or at least 
those who were competent, into his councils, 
and listen patiently, respectfully, reverently, 
gladly to what each had to say. There in 
those first days, under the pressure of the sin 
without and the love within, this custom grew 
up, of the Bishop taking council of his clergy. 

When afterwards the purely diocesan sys- 
tem became modified by the parochial system, 
the clergy who were about the Bishop at his 
Cathedral succeeded to this right to share the 
Episcopal consultations, as they succeeded to al- 
most all the other corporate rights of the whole 
clerical body. It became universal canon law 
that the Bishop must on certain subjects con- 
sult his Chapter before acting upon them. 

Hence the Chapter has been called "the 
Senate of the diocese," and the Canons have 
been called "brothers of the Bishop." In 



The Chapter — The Bishop's Council. 131 



some statutes the duty of the Chapter is 
declared to be, "to aid the Bishop when the 
see is full, to supply his place when it is va- 
cant." One great writer upon ecclesiastical 
law concludes from a mass of evidence, that 
everywhere "the clergy of Cathedral Churches 
formed one body with the Bishop, and entered 
into their share of the anxiety and into some 
association with his sacred sway." Another 
speaking of the Canons says "their principal 
duty was to assist the Bishop by their work 
and their counsels in the government of the 
Church." Reginald Pole says "the rationale 
and ground of instituting Canonries and Pre- 
bends in Churches was that they who are ap- 
pointed to them, may assist the Bishop and 
aid him with counsel and work in the dis- 
charge of his office and divine things." Pius 
VII. when he suppressed every Cathedral in 
France, in 1801, re-erected Chapters because 
it was needful "to provide for Bishops having 
a council." Pius IX. though in 185 1 he in 
turn invaded Chapters still treated them as 
constituting "the Senate and council of the 



132 The Chapter — The Bishop's Council. 



Bishops." Lord Bacon, after arguing from 
the fact that kings, judges and all author- 
ities have councils, that Bishops have need 
of the like assistance by reason both of their 
own infirmity and the gravity of matters with- 
in their jurisdiction, says "that the Deans 
and Chapters were councils about the sees 
and chairs of Bishops at first, and were unto 
them a Presbytery or consistory, and inter- 
meddled not only in the disposing of their 
revenues and endowments but more in jur- 
isdiction ecclesiastical;" and he has much 
more to the same effect. 

It was universal Canon Law, so all Canonists 
hold, that upon the Bishop's mandate the mem- 
bers of the Chapter were' bound to assemble 
in their Chapter-house, and consider any sub- 
ject which he brought before them relating to 
the Episcopal dignity, jurisdiction or admin- 
istration. Upon these points he could at his 
pleasure demand their opinion. Lpon others 
he was bound to ask it. They may be summed 
up under these heads: alienation of property, 
presentation to benefices in the patronage of 



The Chapter — The Bishop's Council. 133 



the Cathedral Church, union of such benefices, 
the making of loans, mortgages, etc., questions 
affecting the interest of the Chapter, as e. g. 
increase or diminution of the number of Can- 
onries and making statutes; the creation of 
Archdeaconries, and the convening of synods. 

At ordinations the Canons were the exam- 
iners; the Archdeacon of the Cathedral juris- 
diction presented the candidates, and the Can- 
ons with the Bishop laid hands upon them. 
The Bishop nominated and the Canons in- 
stalled the Prebends. Many more items of 
interesting information might be given but 
they would have little practical value as 
regards our immediate purpose. 

The opinions of the Canons in Chapter were 
not taken by votes but were declared orally. 
Except in those matters which directly af- 
fected the Chapter in its corporate rights, in 
respect of which its concurrence was neces- 
sary, the decision of the question after the 
conference was with the Bishop; he was not 
bound to follow the advice given him. But 
in matters which concerned the Chapter as 



134 The Chapter — The Bisliofts Council. 



such, the Bishop could not interfere; he could 
not even be present in Chapter when they 
were under discussion, unless he held a pre- 
bendal stall, in which case he attended in 
his capacity of Prebend and not of Bishop. 
These matters were, for instance, the man- 
agement of the capitular estates, administer- 
ing internal discipline, etc. The Dean had 
cure of souls of the whole Chapter and estab- 
lishment of the Cathedral. A Vicar choral 
was usually detailed to the pastoral charge 
of the Cathedral-parish. The details of di- 
vine service and the regulation of the officers 
were within the scope of the Chapter. But 
when the Bishop attended service he directed 
the order himself, pronouncing the Absolution 
and Benediction. He had the right of vis- 
itation, when he could inquire into all inter- 
ests and administration and enforce his in- 
junctions for the correction of abuses. 

These however are details. The matter 
which is important is this; that it was an in- 
stitute that the Bishop might demand of his 
Chapter their advice upon any matter touching 



The CJiapter — The Bishop's Council. 135 



the Episcopal dignity, jurisdiction and admin- 
istration, and that this was undoubtedly drawn 
from a custom which obtained in Apostolic 
or post Apostolic days and which arose out 
of the circumstances of those times, and that 
the reason for it still survives. Indeed, it has 
been said that this function of acting as "the 
Senate of the diocese" and aiding the Bishop 
by advice and service is the one only essen- 
tial quality of the Chapter. It may be seized 
of no estates; it may neglect the daily ser- 
vice; it may maintain neither schools nor 
houses of mercy, and yet remain a Chapter, 
But when it no longer shares the Episcopal 
labors nor yields the assistance of its counsel 
to the Bishop,, it has no longer a right to be. 

In the earlier constitutions of the American 
Church no provision was made for such as- 
sistance to the Bishop as Chapters rendered. 
There was little need of it. The Episcopal func- 
tion was at that time greatly depressed, out of 
deference to the popular suspicion of a Church 
supposed to have an English lineage and a 
monarchical polity. Nor was there much occa- 



136 The Chapter — The Bishop's Council. 



sion for its activity; for among the religious bod- 
ies the Episcopal Church was almost the small- 
est and weakest. The Bishops were rectors of 
parish Churches to which they gave most of their 
services. Their Episcopal duties were slight, 
temporary and occasional. This sufficiently 
accounts for an omission which otherwise 
seems strange. But when the Bishops with- 
drew from subordinate duties, relations and 
offices to their proper sphere, and great in- 
terests came into their hands for a wise ad- 
ministration, and great activities on all sides 
exhausted their strength, the need began to 
be felt both by them and the other orders 
of some body to which they could resort for 
counsel in the discharge of their duties. 

The question was what this body should be; 
how it should be raised; what should be its 
place ? With wise judgment under the circum- 
stances the men of those days did not attempt 
to create a new one, but they made use of 
the standing committee of the diocese. This 
body had long been familiar, and it had been 
charged with other usual duties of the Chap- 



The Chapter — The Bishop's Council. 137 



ter. Accordingly, in 1835 a canon was passed 
by the General Convention providing that " in 
every diocese where there is a Bishop the 
standing committee shall be a council of 
advice to the Bishop. They shall be sum- 
moned on the requisition of the Bishop when- 
ever he shall wish for their advice; and they 
may meet of their own accord agreeably to 
their own rules when they may be disposed 
to advise the Bishop." 

It is interesting to notice how in condi- 
tions very unlike any which ever obtained 
in any other country, there was developed 
a sense of the necessity of the service which 
the Chapters had rendered. The recurrence 
of a function at different periods and under 
different circumstances proves that it is not 
accidental and temporal. It may be said 
that the standing committee being the Bish- 
op's council of advice there is no need of 
the Chapter for that purpose. That would 
be a complete answer to the contention in 
behalf of the Cathedral and its Chapter so 
far as the function under discussion goes, 



138 The Chapter — The Bishop's C ok net I . 



if the jurisdiction of the standing committee 
extended to all the affairs, interests and ad- 
ministration of the diocese. In that case it 
would be only a matter of name. The body 
which should give assistance to the Bishop 
by its counsel and advice, in respect of the 
dignity and jurisdiction of the episcopate 
and the administration and regimen of the 
diocese would be the same, whether it were 
called the Chapter or the standing committee. 
But the jurisdiction of the committee is not 
so extensive. Its duties are of the very 
highest and most solemn nature, but they 
are limited to a very small part of the 
episcopal administration. For instance, the 
committee does not have the care of the 
missions of the diocese. That is an interest 
the most active, urgent and pressing of 
all. It is entrusted to the care of anoth- 
er, separate, disconnected and independent 
body called variously, the board of missions, 
the committee on missions, or the mission- 
ary society. When a question touching mis- 
sions has been determined by the body 



The Chapter — The Bishop's Council. 139 



charged with their care it would be, not 
only unseemly, but mischievous in every way, 
for the Bishop to go to the standing com- 
mittee for advice on the subject. It would 
be raising the committee to an appellate 
jurisdiction and subordinating to it all other 
bodies. Confusion and irritation w r ould fol- 
low which would be intolerable. And what 
is true of missions and the board charged 
with them, is true of all other interests of 
the diocese, which are parcelled out among 
different similar bodies. It thus appears that 
most of the administration of the diocese 
being given into the hands of other bodies 
than the standing committees, it is imprac- 
ticable for it to be a council of advice to 
the Bishop on only a modicum of the sub- 
jects in the discussion, consideration and 
determination of which he needs assistance. 
It is very clear therefore that the standing 
committee of a diocese does not answer all 
the needs which the Bishop may have for 
assistance in the way of advice. As his 
council, as the Senate of the diocese it does 
not fill the place of the Chapter. 



140 The Chapter — The Bishop's Council. 



It may be further insisted that, while the 
standing committee may assist the admin- 
istration as a council of advice in respect 
of a limited number of subjects, yet the 
other bodies which are charged with them 
supply its insufficiencies. Possibly so; but 
this brings us to the question whether the 
Bishop shall have several councils among 
which the administration shall be distributed, 
each with its own small share, or the whole 
shall be vested in a single body. The for- 
mer scheme has heretofore generally obtained. 
In the older dioceses it is the settled policy 
with which people are familiar. It is not 
likely to be given up for anything new. 
Where, however, things are in a formative 
state the other plan of diocesan organiza- 
tion may well be carefully thought of. This 
much may be said for it, that the Chapter 
holds its own proper historical place only as 
a council to assist the Bishop by advice and 
work. Further than that we do not press the 
contention. 



V. 



THE CATHEDRAL— A MISSIONARY ESTAB- 
LISHMENT. 

BETWEEN the idea of the Cathedral and a 
missionary agency there is to many per- 
sons an incongruity almost ludicrous. They 
cannot help thinking of the Cathedral as stand- 
ing apart from the practical and active realities 
of to-day. To them it is an historical institu- 
tion; age, great names, and great events have 
consecrated it by the highest, most sacred and 
most affecting associations. Their vision is full 
of the beauty and the majesty of the most glo- 
rious shrines man ever built to worship at, and 
their ears are full of the exquisite melodies and 
the lofty anthems of a divine service. To them 
these places are the abodes of elegant scholar- 
ship, pious contemplation, exquisite life. Per- 
haps they know them not only in pictures by 
pen and pencil, but have walked in the cloisters 



142 



The Cathedral — 



and close, hall, library and chamber; meeting 
in all the purprise hardly one of the dwellers 
there, and hearing hardly any sound but that 
of their own footfall, even though in the heart 
of a great city, and have felt that here are per- 
fect calm and most affluent conditions. And 
when they strive to think of the place as 
thronged with missionaries, and noisy with the 
comings and goings to and from the distant 
mission station, and all alive with business that 
is concerned about unchristian, ignorant, rude 
people, they revolt at what seems to them a 
desecration. 

But our apology is not of the Cathedral of 
other countries, nor any such conception of it, 
whether it be right or wrong. We have to do 
with the institution in our land and our gener- 
ation. This is a new country with rude con- 
ditions: the mass of the people are without the 
pale of the Church and know very little of her 
ways. The Cathedral, with missionary fields 
lying close about it must, if it is to exist here at 
all, be an institution of work; of plain, common, 
every-day, hard work. Elsewhere, it may be 



A Missionary Establishment. 143 



the luxury of an establishment; here, in order 
to get for itself a place it must show that it is 
more efficient than other agencies for bringing 
these peoples to the blessings which abound 
with the children of the Church. 

There is a general doubt of the competency 
of the Cathedral for this service. But let this 
institution show that it can be useful practi- 
cally, in this behalf, that is to say, that it 
can do what men can see the good of at a 
glance, and nothing else will remain to be 
done in the way of apology. 

Referring to what has already been shown, 
to be of the essence of the Cathedral, namely 
that it is a Church in which is the Bishop's 
seat, where he gathers his clergy or certain of 
them, and by the aid of their counsel admin- 
isters his function, and whence by the aid 
of their services he carries forward the work 
of his diocese, personally, actively, particular- 
ly, and co-extensively with its bounds, we 
have to answer the question how this system 
can be a vigorous, efficient, economical, and 
profitable missionary agency. 



144 



The Cathedral — 



For the purpose of noting the conditions 
of the various missionary fields into which 
the Cathedral has been or is to be introduced, 
and of observing more narrowly the methods 
in which it must operate, we may divide them 
roughly into three classes. 

1. There are, firstly, those regions which the 
Church has not penetrated, as for instance pa- 
gan countries, Indian reservations, and mis- 
sionary jurisdictions when first erected. 

2. There are, secondly, the new and sparsely 
populated states, where the work has begun 
and has been carried on by parochial organi- 
zations. 

3. There remain, thirdly to be noticed, the 
well settled states, where the ground has been 
well occupied by parishes. 

Beginning with the regions first mentioned, 
we may rejoice that there is one point which 
has been fixed. Formerly, it was an open 
question much debated and finally answered 
with hesitancy and doubt, whether the Church 
should go into new and to her unknown re- 
gions in the care of the lower orders of clergy, 



A Missionary Establishment. 145 



and the work of planting her institutions there 
should be begun in a desultory, accidental, 
haphazard way, and afterwards, when par- 
ishes had been started here and there, Bishops 
should be sent out as an ornamental com- 
plement of the system, or whether the Bish- 
op should go at the head of the forces 
in command of the army of observation, se- 
lect the strategic points, plan the campaign, 
and himself bear the severities of the arduous 
work. Almost in our generation the policy 
of the Church on that point has been settled 
once and forever. It was one step and a very 
long step towards that system of missionary 
enterprise, the center and principle of which 
is the Cathedral. It is the postulate of our 
contention. Our inquiry is a narrower one: 
it is how shall the Bishop carry himself when 
sent to such regions. Shall he keep at the 
head and in the van of the army, or shall he 
retire to some place of safety; shall he per- 
sonally wield the discipline, cheer the spirits 
and order the movements of his forces, with 
the force and vigor and authority which one 



146 The Cathedral — 



not present on the field can never have, 01 
shall his arm drop nerveless and the battle, 
once set in order, be without a commander; 
shall he mass his men and make a strong 
post where what is gained will be safe and 
thence make incursions into the enemy's coun- 
try when and where and as he sees can be 
done effectively, or shall he disperse his forces, 
putting one man here and another there and 
a third still farther off, and leave each alone 
to do the best he can for himself? In a word, 
shall he be a general or a subaltern, a Bishop 
or a Deacon; and shall the policy be co-opera- 
tion or isolation ? 

If this line of remark be too general to assist 
the argument, and if it rest on an analogy 
that is not apt enough to prove much, then 
we appeal to what has been done by others in 
other times. The conditions of a Bishop go- 
ing into regions where the Church is unknown 
are not greatly unlike those in which the Gos- 
pel was first preached. In pagan countries 
the conditions are almost precisely those of 
ancient Britain. In the new missionary juris- 



A Missionary Establishment. 147 



dictions there is a difference, only to a degree. 
There are not cities, an old religion, a refined 
philosophy, a dissatisfied conscience, and an 
uncertain and anxious hope, as in Greece and 
Italy and the provinces of imperial Rome. 
Nor, on the other hand, are there the pa- 
ganism and semibarbarism of Britain. But 
in an unorganized society in which all the 
moral restraints of old communities are re- 
laxed, religion in any of its forms holds 
sway over the practices, hearts and purposes 
of very very few; and efforts in behalf of a 
better order of things are initiatory, indeci- 
sive, uncertain, unsuccessful and not infre- 
quently illegitimate. Whatever differences 
there may be are incidental and for our pre- 
sent purpose trifling. In their important and 
necessary circumstances the societies to whom 
the apostles and first Bishops were sent and 
those on our frontier are much the same. We 
may then well ask, why the methods of the 
early days should not now be followed. We 
know how efficient those methods were then. 
By means of them was wrought that great 



148 



The Cathedral — 



miracle of history, the world's conversion 
from the old mythology to the faith of the 
despised sect of the Christian, and the regen- 
eration of society from superstition and vile 
corruption to a comparative purity of morals 
and character. There must have been some- 
thing in the ways of those by whom that rev- 
olution was effected, not to be cast aside and 
held for nought even in these days. 

But we do not need to appeal to a remote 
antiquity, for facts to support our conten- 
tion. We have examples at hand in our own 
times of various characters. For instance, 
there are the missionaries in heathen coun- 
tries of religious denominations which do not 
have Bishops, but whose ministers are of one 
order. The structure and methods of these 
adventures are essentially those of the Ca- 
thedral. The missionaries live together, if 
not always under one roof yet in a commun- 
ity by themselves, separate from the vice, ig- 
norance and superstition about them: they 
draw their support from a common treasury: 
they are associated for a common work, 



A Missionary Establishment. 149 



the whole scheme of which is laid out for 
them and apportioned among them, and the 
whole establishment is under the presiden- 
cy of a chief officer. An example is the mis- 
sion of the American board of foreign mis- 
sions at Beyrout of which Dr. Jessup is the 
head. It has grown to large proportions, so 
that offshoots have sprung up somewhat re- 
mote from the central body. And yet with all 
the encouragement that has been given them, 
under the system of parity of orders, these 
separate stations decline to be isolated and 
cannot be raised into independence. There 
remains the home establishment which still 
cares for its children in remote parts, and 
to which they look for succor and affection. 
And almost all the missions of these bodies 
are planted and constructed on the same plan. 
It is a very interesting fact that these mission- 
aries not infrequently felicitate themselves 
upon their similitude to the apostolic methods. 

This illustration drawn as it is from the 
experience of non-episcopal Christians who 
decline the names and titles and settled 



The Cathedral — 



order of the early Church is an extreme one: 
it may be a distasteful one to some who do 
not like to learn from an enemy. But for the 
very reason that it is drawn from such alien 
conditions it has the greater force. When 
we see societies in very remote periods, under 
civilizations very unlike, springing up under 
most diverse polities, taking on the same form, 
and following the same methods, we must 
admit that there is at any rate a strong prob- 
ability that that structure and those modes 
are not only good but the very best. The 
example we have given and its coincidence 
with the Apostolic system may not deci- 
sively prove that Missions can be better 
worked by communities of missionaries un- 
der the direction of a chief officer, but it 
certainly goes a good ways to support the 
contention. 

But we do not need to go to the experience 
of other denominations nor to other countries. 
We have examples at home in our own coun- 
try. Bishop Hare's Missions among the In- 
dians are all associate. At each is a con- 



A Missionary Establishment. i 5 1 



siderable force of clergy, teachers and helpers 
of both sexes and both races, all living to- 
gether and working together under his ob- 
servation. If the dependent populations were 
considerably more numerous and the mission- 
ary force greater, the system would be almost 
precisely that of the Minsters in England in 
the tenth century. A proposition to dis- 
integrate these bodies, distribute these forces, 
and isolate these missionaries would be re- 
ceived by them with consternation. 

If that example is peculiar, another is at 
hand. The jurisdiction committed to Bishop 
Tuttle when he was first sent to the West, was 
so very extensive that it was physically im- 
possible to work it all from one center; but 
he organized the Utah Mission upon the 
Cathedral system. He made his home in 
Salt Lake City, the chief town of the Terri- 
tory; he associated his clergy together here; 
he built St. Mark's Cathedral, a structure of 
considerable size, beauty, solidity, and dig- 
nity; he surrounded it with first-rate schools 
for boys and girls; he established a large and 



152 



The Cathedral — 



well appointed hospital; he gathered around 
him there a force of men and women, himself 
in the midst the grand figure of an Apostle; 
and the close association, common work, 
intense devotion, and lofty aspiration of the 
society have deeply impressed the hardest, 
most untoward population, both Mormon and 
Gentile, a Christian missionary ever worked 
upon. It must not be supposed that Bishop 
Tuttle's work took the consistency and ex- 
pression of the Cathedral system. It did not 
do so, although that is a consummation de- 
voutly wished by him. But it had the sub- 
stance of it, as one can see by laying our 
description of the Cathedral alongside our very 
brief account of his work and his method of 
doing it. 

Let us follow him a little farther into the 
possibilities. Suppose the benevolence of the 
Church had been generous enough to have 
given him an ample clergy house and clergy- 
men to fill it, who should live together under 
his eye and work under his direction. What 
must have happened ? His manly, vigorous, 



A Missionary Establishment. 153 



stalwart spirit arouses the Christian manhood 
in every one of them. A depth of devotion fed 
at the altar at which they all continually come; 
a zeal for work stimulated by sight of what 
each is doing; an exaltation of life and inten- 
sity of spirit, apt to become morbid in isola- 
tion but healthy and transcendent in associa- 
tion, pervade the community. Each as he 
is sent, goes to his allotted task, whether far 
or near, carrying the wisdom his Bishop has 
taught him, the fervency of the early Chris- 
tian, and the self-abnegation of the martyrs. 
And when the period of his return has come 
he turns his face in gladness to his home and 
Church and Father in God. What sort of 
work throughout the borders of the juris- 
diction will in a few years be done by a body 
of men working in that way, and what sort 
of men will they become after a few years of 
such a life it is not hard to tell. 

This is not a fancy sketch. Wherever the 
least attempt has been made to work in that 
way, good promise of all we have imagined 
has been given. And it must be so, for it is 



154 



The Cathedral — 



according to a certain law of human nature; a 
law which is just as immutable as that which 
governs the society of the stars. When men 
come together, live, strive, think, feel, and 
hope all together for one purpose, what al- 
ways happens ? The end they aim for be- 
comes exaggerated in their eyes; their efforts 
to gain it exhausts their strength; their resist- 
ance to whatever opposes them is violent; their 
devotion is uncompromising; and their life in- 
tense. The reason is plain. Each bringing 
into the association his share of zeal and in- 
terest and feeling stimulates the zeal, inter- 
est, and feeling of every other. The most 
notable example is an army. You may see 
it also in trades unions, schools, professions, 
and guilds. 

When men are associated for the purpose 
of our divine religion this law operates with 
the very highest force. The mystery of the 
early Christian Church is solved by this law 
of human nature and the miracle of the 
world's conversion is explained on the sim- 
plest grounds. Human nature is the same 



A Missionary EstablisJiment. 155 



now as then; why should not a system which 
avails itself of that law be resorted to by us ? 

But some timid soul may say that neither 
the money noT the men are forthcoming for 
such a mission. As for men, if the picture were 
put before the eyes of the ingenuous, studious, 
right-minded youth of the schools and col- 
leges of this country they would forget, 
or some fair number of them would forget 
the lesson they are always being taught, that 
money and ease and fat living are the good 
things of life, and would long to turn their 
backs on it and hasten to join that company. 
When Doctor Breck planted his mission in 
the unknown West an enthusiasm for it ran 
through the Church. These are better days than 
those. A large project such as is above sug- 
gested must excite an interest that will far out- 
run anything he ever heard or thought of. And 
as for money it will not be wanting. When 
the interest of the Church was aroused in In- 
dian missions, how means beyond any use 
poured in from every hand. It will always be 
so. Let a great Bishop like him of Utah once 



156 



The Cathedral — 



get the ear of churchmen and churchwomen, 
and tell them of his Cathedral, and that to 
save his people he must realize, once more the 
life and work and spirit of the early times and 
his treasury will be filled. It is just one of 
those stories which catch and fire the imagi- 
nations of men. 

2. The conditions of those regions into 
which the Church has entered and made 
some headway, working by the aid of par- 
ish organizations, but which remain almost 
wholly missionary fields, present a problem 
less simple and soluble. Before entering upon 
its discussion, two remarks may be made, for 
the purpose of forestalling what is likely to 
be objected to our contention. 

The first is, that between the Parish and 
the Cathedral there should be no hostility, 
rivalry, or collision. The two systems, the 
parochial and the cathedral, are entirely con- 
gruous. The Parish is an entity, having its 
own organization, property, administration, 
and function. It is safe from any invasion, be- 
ing hedged about by constitutional provisions. 



A Missionci7y Establishment. 157 



It cannot be absorbed by the Cathedral, and 
it ought not to be. No scheme of Cathedral 
organization can possibly supply its place. 

The other point to be noted is, that the 
mission ought not always to be a mission. 
Planted in a new soil, while yet weak and 
needing support, and until it grows in strength 
and force so that it can stand and go alone, 
it must depend upon the help and sustenance 
of the power which gave it being. The child 
must be led; the man must walk alone. The 
Cathedral must not for the sake of ambition 
or self-aggrandizement, retain in its hands any 
part of its missionary work one moment after 
it is done. When that is accomplished, the 
mission should be erected into a parish. 
There is not much danger of any attempt 
to do otherwise, so long as the exigencies 
of missionary enterprise are severe. Genera- 
tions to come are not likely to see them less 
pressing than they are now. But the dis- 
claimer is not ill-timed, while prejudices are 
rife against what men are so ready to take 
for and stigmatize as centralization. 



158 



The Cathedral — 



Now let us go on to consider the condi- 
tions of the regions secondly above mentioned, 
and the fitness of the Cathedral system to 
meet them. Here, as in the countries of which 
we have been speaking, there are wide spaces 
which the Church has not penetrated. We need 
hardly say that they must be occupied in the 
same way as the missionary jurisdictions. Their 
circumstances are not qualified by the fact that 
there are parishes remote from them although 
within the same diocese; they draw no sus- 
tenance from them. It is when we enter 
territory partially occupied by parishes that 
different conditions are presented. Between 
these partially occupied and the vacant 
fields there is this difference. While in the 
latter, the missionary looks to the Cathe- 
dral as his home, no matter how long his 
absences, and he works as a member of a 
community under the direct eyes and order 
of the Bishop, in the former, he has his home 
in the parish, and gives to it his labors and 
comes up to the Cathedral at intervals and 
for short periods. 



A Missionary Establishment. 159 



The situation of a missionary on the fron- 
tier is not altogether happy. He lives almost 
alone; no fellow workman is near; months pass 
vvithout his looking on the face of a brother. 
When that pleasure is given him it is so brief 
that the chill of strangeness is not broken: there 
is little opportunity for sympathy and confidence. 
The flock generally gives little support to the 
yearning heart of the Pastor: rather do the peo- 
ple draw upon it for sympathy and comfort in 
their sorrows and spiritual wants. The iso- 
lation is absolute. The influence of his situa- 
tion upon his character is anything but good. 
He may begin his work with ever so much 
promise, but often his zeal abates. Without 
stimulus to keep up his reading he is likely 
to neglect his books. He seldom meets any 
one whose conversation rouses him to hard, 
deep, and earnest thinking, and he settles 
down into ruts and is satisfied with words. 
He is apt to become narrow in his views of 
men, society, and affairs, and less and less 
fit to lead and guide the thought of his peo- 
ple. With this deterioration of his mental 



i6o 



The Catliedral — 



powers, a dryness creeps over his religious 
sensibilities, and his piety, still kept alive 
by the exercises of his holy office, loses 
freshness^ of expression. Any Bishop of such 
a field can tell many a sad tale of the young 
priest of whom he hoped much and who has 
disappointed him grievously. And, on the 
other hand, the man who has strength to 
bear up under these untoward circumstances, 
seeking a holier communion than the society 
of men, and finding refreshment in his studies, 
demands our sympathy almost as much as his 
weaker brother. To any one devoted to re- 
ligion, solitude has the intensest trials and 
sorrows. What does not introspection re- 
veal ? What solicitude about duties ? What 
anxieties over weariness of spirit ? What 
agony when the heart does not respond to 
the words of the lip, in the solemn and awful 
services of the Church ? These are the cares 
and sorrows of the priest to whom it is given 
to be faithful in solitude. Be it said to the 
honor of these men and the glory of God, 
most missionaries are of this holy sort. If 



A Missionary Establishment, 161 



anything can be done to alleviate their con- 
dition it is as much a duty as the care of the 
sick, the orphan and the destitute. 

There is a practical mode of relief, I had 
almost said redemption, of missionary clergy 
to be found in the Cathedral system. This 
sounds extravagant; but I believe a few words 
are enough to make the statement good to 
fair-minded churchmen. Suppose there were 
at the Cathedral a hall; and twice or four 
times or a dozen times a year as should be 
appointed him, the missionary should come 
up for a brief residence in it. Here he would 
meet and know and learn to love those who 
like him were devoted by vow and habit and 
zeal to the service of their common Lord; 
here he would find companionship and sym- 
pathy and affections and a freshened life and 
an animated spirit, such as come only from 
the warmth and fervor of association; here 
he would find the guidance and direction and 
counsel of his Bishop, and the elder and the 
wiser of the clergy; here he would see the 
need of reading to keep pace with the prog- 



102 



The Cathedral — 



ress of others by whose conversation he would 
be stimulated to exertion; here, above all, he 
would have the altar at w T hich to kneel in 
the highest act of worship and the splendid 
services of the temple. And so he would be 
strengthened against the trials of his lot 
among the people to whom he is sent, and 
against those other trials of the spirit. His 
stay need not be long; even a few days 
might suffice to return him to his work a 
new man. 

But the missionary is not the only person 
who would be blessed by this relief. Coming 
up at stated times, he would, either by express 
rule or in the natural course, report to the 
Bishop of his work, his field, and his life. 
The peculiar needs of the stations he serves, 
and his aptness to answer them would be- 
come known; and he would be instructed by 
wise counsels and encouraged to go on, or be 
reinforced by others or withdrawn to some 
other place for which he would seem bet- 
ter fitted, as the case required. Missionaries 
thus organized and working from the Ca- 



A Missionary Establishment. 163 



thedral would in a very few years become 
a homogeneous body, having common inter- 
ests, modes, sentiments, and aspirations. There 
would soon grow up among them an esprit de 
corps, without which no society was ever ef- 
ficient. 

If it be said that this is the idle fondness 
of hope, I appeal to experience in other de- 
partments of life. It is safe to say that there 
never was a successful trading or manufactur- 
ing establishment, whose employees were not 
bound together and to the interests which 
they served, and made to feel that they had 
a share in the enterprise. It is human nature 
that it should be so. Why then in the Church 
where men are moved by the same impulses, 
should the lessons of experience and obser- 
vation be ignored ? Co-operation is the first 
element in social progress: why should the 
Church adhere to a policy of isolation ? 

3. The old and well settled States have need 
of the same machinery as the new missionary 
jurisdictions if they contain wide unoccupied 
territories; and the same organization as the 



164 A Missionary Establishment. 



new dioceses if they have many weak parishes 
partially dependent upon outside aid. Pass- 
ing these by, we come to what is peculiar in 
their circumstances and needs. We have to 
ask the indulgence of the reader and beg 
him to turn back these pages to the extracts 
we have made from Bishop Benson and Bishop 
Sweatman and read them again in this con- 
nection. They enlighten the subject of the 
practical uses of Cathedrals, more than the 
same number of words from the pen of any 
other writer. They leave nothing to be said 
here. 



VI. 



THE DAILY OFFICE. 
HE first duty of the Cathedral clergy is 



the maintenance in a becoming man- 
ner of the services of the sanctuary. I say 
their first, but not their peculiar duty; for it 
belongs to the whole body of those who are 
set apart to minister unto the Lord in His 
holy temple. Nor would I say that daily 
morning and evening prayer any more than 
the weekly Holy Eucharist is the peculiar duty 
of those who serve at the Cathedral. It, too, 
is a duty common to them and to the parish 
clergy. Every Church in the diocese should 
be open every day for the prayers which are 
appointed to be said at matins and at even- 
tide, and should resound on Sundays and 
festivals with the accents of the highest 
Christian worship, which our Lord Himself 




1 66 The Daily Office. 



instituted. But this is not practicable in 
all parish Churches: it is vain to expect it. 
But the doors of the Cathedral, the mother 
of all the Churches, should never on any ac- 
count be closed at the times appointed for these 
services. And there is another duty which is 
peculiar to the Cathedral clergy: that duty 
is, to perform the service in the most solemn 
and impressive manner, with every circum- 
stance of reverent worship. Every member 
of the Cathedral body should be required to 
be in his place, and every act be studiously 
done which should make these services fit 
for the holy place, and fit for the Holy One 
Who dwells there, — as fit, I mean, as any hu- 
man offering can be worthy of His acceptance. 

"He set singers also before the altar, that 

By their voices they might make sweet melody, 
And sing daily praises in their songs. 
He beautified their feasts and set in order 
The solemn times, until the end, that they 
Might praise His holy name, and that the 
Temple might sound from morning." 

It is not becoming me to enforce this duty. 
Nor do I need to do so. Another has done 



The Daily Office. 167 



it with the pious fervor with which all his 
writings are instinct. Dean Goulburn, of 
Norwich, England, some years ago published 
a little volume of sermons on the Cathedral 
system, in which he sets forth and enforces 
the duty of maintaining the daily office as 
chiefly devolving upon the Cathedral clergy. 
It is a book which all who are interested in 
our subject should read before any other. I 
shall make some extracts from it which will 
give the gist of what he says upon this par- 
ticular subject. Speaking of the " practical 
account to which cathedrals may be turned, 
both congruous and dignified," he says: 

"The principle which, I believe, lies at 
the root of the question on which we are 
entering is this: that the honor of Almighty 
God is an end of human action, distinct from 
and even superior to the good of man." 

After a beautiful and forcible application 
of the incident of the woman anointing our 
Lord's feet with the gift of great value, and 
His commendation of the act in answer tc 
the murmur of the disciples, he says: "But 



1 68 The Daily Office. 



our Lord will have none of their calculations; 
terminates them prematurely. i This is no 
waste/ He virtually says; 'it is no prodigal- 
ity, unless indeed it be the noble prodigality 
of faith, and zeal, and love. She is honoring 
Me, even though she be not succoring the 
poor; and, moreover, it is an opportunity of 
paying Me honor which is rarely vouchsafed 
to men. Ye have the poor with you always, 
and whensoever ye will, ye may do them 
good: but Me ye have not always.' 



" I trust that I have opened a way by these 
remarks for the discernment of the true char- 
acter of the Cathedral Church. It is a building 
specially and prominently dedicated to the 
glory of Almighty God. I say specially and 
prominently ; and it is by this specialty and 
prominence that I believe a Cathedral to 
be distinguished from other Churches. All 
Churches are, of course, in one aspect of them, 
offerings to God for the honor of His name. 
But then this is not the leading, but the sub- 
ordinate idea in a parochial Church. The pri- 



The Daily Office. 



169 



mary object there is the dealing with hu- 
man souls, the converting and softening of 
human hearts, the stirring and awakening of hu- 
man consciences, the initiating the worshipper 
into the knowledge of God, and the gradual 
drawing of him up into communion with God. 
Nor is this end in the least degree foreign to the 
functions of a Cathedral; rather it is a part of 
its functions, only not the most prominent part, 
not the great characterizing idea. The Cathe- 
dral is a place rather where God is worshipped 
than where man is impressed, though it is a 
most blessed thing indeed where the latter 
end is secured along w r ith the former. ' Make 
our Cathedrals popular,' they exclaim, ' by 
drawing to them large congregations, and in- 
ducing effective preachers to address the goodly 
throng.' ' By all means,' I would reply, ' un 
speakably blessed is the work, wheresoever or 
by whomsoever done, of turning a soul to 
righteousness, or leading it on in righteous- 
ness — make the Cathedrals as serviceable in 
this way as you possibly can; but do not, in a 
fit of indiscreet zeal, confuse or obliterate their 



I/O 



The Daily Office. 



leading idea; do not parochialize, or turn them 
into vast parish Churches. The very core and 
center of all their proceedings is not a sermon 
to the masses (excellent as that is in its sea- 
son, and oh ! that we had more of such ser- 
mons, and more of that sort of preacher who 
has the happy tact of stirring the soul and con- 
science !), but the daily office in the choir, 
solemn, effective, dignified; rendered as perfect 
as possible by the accessory of beautiful music, 
and ever striving and yearning to represent 
more perfectly upon earth the adoration which 
ceaselessly goes on in the courts of heaven. 
The anthem is quite in place in such worship; 
nor surely should anthems ever be discontinued 
in Cathedrals, though unsuited (in my judg- 
ment) to the worship of parochial Churches. 
To discard anthems from Cathedrals would be 
to discard some of the grandest efforts of music 
to praise the Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier, 
from those very houses of prayer which are, in 
a more especial manner, dedicated to the cel- 
ebration of the glories of His name.'" 



The Daily Office. 171 



"But let us look a little more closely into 
the rationale of the Temple services, and see 
whether the ground of maintaining, under the 
new dispensation, something analogous to them 
has ceased. It appears then to have been the 
purpose of the divine wisdom to construct upon 
earth a little model or miniature of the worship 
carried on in heaven. Heaven may be regarded 
as the home of the human family, from which 
they have strayed by sin, but to which the 
saved are eventually to be brought back 
through Christ. Heaven is the bosom and 
dwelling place of the Father of our spirits, to 
which Christ instructs us to lift up our minds 
when we pray, ' Our Father, which art in hea- 
ven.' It is easy to understand, then, that in 
the ears of His chosen people (and His chosen 
people were of old the Jews) God would wish 
to sound ever and anon echoes of heaven, 
echoes of its worship and its praise, that He 
would wish to submit to their eyes continually 
something which, however dimly and myste- 
riously, should remind them of their high des- 
tiny, and waken in them an aspiration for it. 



172 



The Daily Office. 



But that there was, whatever may have been the 
ground of it, a real and designed connection 
between the worship carried on in heaven and 
the Temple service, is clear from the words of 
the Apostle to the Hebrews: * There are priests 
who offer gifts according to law: who serve 
unto the example and shadow of heavenly things 
as Moses was admonished of God when he was 
about to make the tabernacle: for, see, saith 
He, that thou shalt make all things according to 
the pattern shewed to thee in the mount' Yes; 
' unto the example and shadow/ i according to 
the pattern.' Heaven is ' the true ' (or antityp- 
ical) ' tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and 
not man.' Our Lord Jesus Christ is the High 
Priest of this tabernacle, who presents there 
continually His blood and merits, and offers 
also the prayers of His people, made fragrant 
with the incense of His own intercession. Nor 
is His mediation for sinful man in Heaven to be 
limited to times subsequent to His appearance 
on earth. It is only in virtue of His foreseen 
sacrifice and intercession that believing Israel- 
ites were accepted of old; and though His 



The Daily Office. 



173 



atonement was made in time, it was foreor- 
dained of God from all eternity, and sinners 
dealt with in mercy on the ground of it, for 
which reason He is called 1 the Lamb slain 
from the foundation of the world.' He, then, 
even before His assumption of human nature, 
was the mediating High Priest of the true 
tabernacle. And of this tabernacle the holy 
angels are the subordinate ministers; they form 
its choir and its worshippers, and surround the 
throne of God and the Lamb with chants of 
praise, which cease not day and night. Now 
the dark similitude of this worship was ex- 
pressed in the various arrangements of the 
Temple service. The High Priest passing an- 
nually into the holy place with incense and 
blood was a figure of Christ mediating, by His 
atonement, which was transacted on earth (in 
the outer court of God's temple), and His in- 
tercession, which is transacted in Heaven; and 
the subordinate Priest and Levites, whether in 
their ministries of sacrifice or song, represented 
the angels. We must suppose that to spirit- 
ually-minded Israelites these emblems were 



174 



The Daily Office, 



not merely and utterly dark, that, as they 
prayed and meditated on what little was made 
known to them (whether in the law or by tra- 
dition) of God's counsels, the meaning of the 
Temple service was partially cleared up; and if 
so, we cannot wonder that these services, wak- 
ing in their mind the far-off echo of heavenly 
things, should have proved to them so great a 
refreshment of spirit as we know from the 
psalms they did. 

"Now I remark, first, that though the out- 
ward form of worship rendered to Almighty 
God under the Old Testament dispensation 
has been abrogated, though we are no longer 
called upon to do homage to Him with burnt- 
offerings, or sacrifice for sin, or sweet incense, 
one main ground upon which we must sup- 
pose Temple worship to have been instituted— 
namely, to keep alive in the minds of God's 
people a continual aspiration after their hea- 
venly home — still remains. Though our re- 
ligious light is in many respects much clearer 
than that which the Jews enjoyed, yet we still 
4 walk by faith, not by sight,' and therefore 



The Daily Office. 



175 



have as much need as they of some miniature 
and model of heavenly worship, to be under 
our eyes continually, and to remind us of the 
occupations and pursuits in which we hope to 
pass our eternity. Churches closed from Sun- 
day to Sunday, or opened only at intervals, 
however beneficial may be the influence of the 
services occasionally held in them, do not 
do this with sufficient emphasis; for hea- 
ven's temple is never closed, nor, although 
its blessed inhabitants are employed on God's 
errands in different parts of the universe, does 
its song of praise ever cease; — 'They rest not 
day and night, saying, Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord 
God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to 
come.' But great central churches where wor- 
ship is never silent, where it is carried on with 
the unvarying regularity of the dawn and the 
nightfall, uninterrupted by the most startling 
events whether of a public or a private char- 
acter, and changeless in its accents and fea- 
tures amid a world which is full of change, 
such churches as these do help to make an 
audible echo of the infinitely sweet and sol- 



176 The Daily Office. 



emn worship which is carried on in God's hea- 
venly temple, and are as fresh flowers to a 
captive in a dungeon, or sweet chimes in a 
dreary night, mementoes midst the darkness 
of this life of what is beautiful and holy." 

"So that in the worship of the Christian 
Church, while the outward form is in many 
respects utterly different, the spirit and prin- 
ciple of Temple worship still survives. Both 
are attempts on the part of God's Church 
Militant to express on earth the unseen and 
sublime worship of His Church Triumphant; 
both contain representations, both by God's 
own finger, of Divine things, the latter hav- 
ing the substance as well as the shadow of 
those things, the former the shadow only — 
and both are characterized by one great com- 
mon feature, noble hymns of praise — that spir- 
itual exercise, which is the expression of the 
grace of love, as prayer is the expression of 
the grace of faith, and which like love, shall 
survive, when the necessity for prayer has 
passed away." 



The Daily Office. 177 



"The great thought which has been the 
subject of the present discourse, and which I 
wish to leave upon your minds as the sum 
and substance of what has been said, is that 
the worship of the Christian Church is de- 
signed to be, and ought to be, an echo of 
the worship which is ever proceeding in hea- 
ven. If it differs from that of the Temple, it 
differs, not in being less expressive of things 
unseen and divine, but in being less enigmat- 
ical, and so more clearly and plainly express- 
ive — not in having less of that element which 
touches the feelings and kindles the heart, but 
only in having more of that element which en- 
lightens the understanding. It is no doubt, 
as compared with Temple worship, a reason- 
able service; but it has lost nothing of that 
power of moving the sympathies of the soul, 
which Temple worship exerted to such a re- 
markable degree, as is witnessed by such de- 
vout aspirations as these: — 

" ' One thing have I desired of the Lord, that 
will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house 
of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold 



i 7 8 



The Daily Office. 



the beauty of the Lord, and to enquire in His 
temple.' — ' How amiable are Thy tabernacles 
O Lord of Hosts ! my soul longeth, yea, even 
fainteth for the courts of the Lord; my heart 
and my flesh crieth out for the living God. . . . 
Blessed are they who dwell in Thy house: they 

will be still praising Thee For a day 

in Thy courts is better than a thousand. I 
had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my 
God, than to dwell in the tents of wicked- 
ness.' — 1 Lord, I have loved the habitation of 
Thy house, and the place where Thine honor 
dwelleth.'" 



VII. 



ACCESSORIES. 



E have now seen unfolded before our 



eyes a distinct and definite view 
of the Cathedral: a Church having the Bish- 
op's seat, where the Episcopal function is 
in an especial way shone forth and exer- 
cised as the primary quality; having also 
a number of clergy who aid him in the ex- 
ercise of his office of administrator of the 
diocese, first, by their council, and then by 
their labors, as the secondary quality. This 
body of clergy rendering their service after 
a twofold manner, namely, first, by the 
maintenance of the stately and worthy wor- 
ship of Almighty God in the Temple, and 
secondly, by free, large, generous ministra- 
tions unto the destitute throughout the jur- 
isdiction or in supplement to others' work, 




i8o 



Accessories. 



is the third characteristic of the institution 
And this is a full view of the essential quali 
ties of the Cathedral. Whatever more is 
added is not essential but is accessory to it. 
But as the exigencies of society and the 
Church have from time to time demanded 
activities in other ways, these institutions 
have grown by accretion so that what strictly 
is not needed to their completeness has be- 
come usefully, presently and generally a 
part of them. This is only according to a 
natural and common law of development 
of almost all institutions. Schools, for in- 
stance, are primarily for the instruction of 
youth, but many have become seats of learn- 
ing and places of original research. Armies 
and navies are organized to fight battles on 
the land and on the sea; but officers are 
detailed to many other kinds of service and 
institutions are established for purposes very 
remote from the business of war; as for in- 
stance the signal service, the naval obser- 
vatory, engineering works in aid of com- 
merce. No view of the Cathedral is at all 



Accessories. 



181 



adequate which does not take in its inciden- 
tal institutions. 

I. In their effort to find reasons which the 
popular mind will readily appreciate for keep- 
ing the English Cathedrals sacred to their 
own purposes, and also for enlarging their 
practical uses, it has been a favorite scheme 
with their apologists that schools for candi- 
dates for holy orders should be organized 
in connection with them, and the Can- 
ons be charged with the business of in- 
struction. And this is but a revival of an 
ancient use. One of the chief designs of 
Cranmer in his organization of the Cathe- 
drals of the new foundation, was " to make 
them nurseries of young divines for the ser- 
vice of the Church, trained in the study of 
divinity under the immediate inspection of 
the Bishops, Deans, and Chapters." And 
this was only bringing in again an office 
and employment when Cathedrals were at 
their highest dignity and service. There 
were the best of reasons in early times for 
what was done in this behalf; and they 



182 



Accessories. 



doubtless remain in England to this day. 
Under the stress of the most urgent need 
of more clergy than they know how to get, 
many a Bishop in this country has under- 
taken to supply the want by a divinity 
school of his own. Almost all Cathedral 
organizations in our country contemplate 
them. The examples of ancient times and 
the recent expressions and endeavors in 
England have given strength to the notion 
that they are the natural if not essential 
appendages of Cathedrals. 

But the circumstances here are altogether 
unlike those of England. There the Church 
is a great national establishment: here she 
is an inconsiderable body. There a diocese 
is a great Christian empire: here it is not 
much more than a hamlet in comparison. 
It is simply impossible for each diocese to 
have a well equipped school of scientific 
theology. The men for teachers, the means 
for their support, the houses and halls, and, 
above all, the candidates in numbers are not 
to be had. Small schools with limited facil- 



Accessories. 



183 



ities, which is all they can have, are unequal 
to the thorough education of candidates. A 
great school with liberal endowments, a faculty 
of professors who are men of learning and char- 
acter, with an ample library, dignified and ven- 
erable buildings, extensive grounds, and goodly 
numbers of scholars have a certain special qaul- 
ity. There is an air in the place, a flavor in the 
life, a fine quality in the scholarship, a dig- 
nity in the manhood of the collegiate society 
that make or go far to make good breeding. 
This may be seen in the great colleges of our 
country. It is a proverb in all descriptions 
of Oxford and Cambridge and of the men 
trained there. Such institutions and their 
advantages are to be had in our country, 
only by several dioceses uniting for their 
most liberal support in every way. They 
may well be in connection with a Cathedral, 
but they cannot be at every Cathedral. 

But there remains a training of the young 
clergyman at every Cathedral that is proper 
and necessary. After he has graduated in 
divinity, he has much to be taught before he 



Accessories. 



can safely be entrusted with the cure of souls. 
He needs to learn how to meet and deal with 
men of all sorts and to get skill in the use 
of the treasuries of learning he has been 
gathering. This can be learned, not out of 
books or from lectures, but by going out and 
actually doing the thing under the eye and 
teaching of a man trained to the task, who 
should be a Canon. The preparation for the 
other professions is not deemed complete until 
the scholastic curriculum is supplemented by 
practical instruction. The young man who has 
completed his courses of lectures at the med- 
ical college thinks he must spend some years 
in the hospital; and he who has taken his 
degree in the law is required to study a cer- 
tain term in the office of a counselor before 
he is admitted to the bar. Surely prepara- 
tion for the work of the cure of men's souls 
should not be more imperfect than that of 
the cure of men's bodies or the care of their 
estates. 

The Cathedral is the very place for this 
sort of training. Here is the clergy-house 



Accessories, 



in which the young Deacon may live in com- 
pany with the missionaries, learning of them, 
catching their spirit, and looking forward to 
a share in their work; here are the Canons 
and the Bishop to guide and instruct him by 
personal, conversational, and familiar teach- 
ings; and here in the missions of the see 
city, in the services of the Cathedral and in 
the simple, frugal, devout, and holy life of the 
community he learns to do the work and walk 
in the ways of a priest of the Church. 

2. We once heard the eloquent Bishop of 
Northern Texas say with deep emotion, that 
the sorest trial of the parish priest was the 
duty of celebrating the Holy Communion 
under the compulsion of inexorable appoint- 
ment, when his heart within him did not 
respond to the sacred office. The pathetic 
words in which he described the suffering 
cannot be reproduced. We state the point 
in the baldest way. The round of daily duty, 
the sympathies constantly drawn upon, the 
fears excited by the sights of evil and wrong 
on every side, the exhaustion of much watch- 



Accessories. 



ing and care, even the dulness that is so apt 
to come to the most devout and vivacious 
spirit, all press upon the parish priest with 
such severity that, without some help, he 
must be subjected to trials such as the Bish- 
op described. There must be danger of a 
settled consciousness of his own unfitness for 
his sacred office, and of the unreality of his 
life in it. It is only the common experience 
of all men that this should be so. The lawyer, 
the physician, the man of affairs, grows dull 
and heavy and unequal to his tasks after long 
terms of application. He must have periods 
of relaxation and change of scene and vaca- 
tions of perfect rest. If he do not take them 
the end comes very soon. And the clergy- 
man is like all others; save that there is no 
part of man's nature which tires so soon and 
breaks down so utterly as that, in the con- 
stant exercise of which the parish priest lives. 
Nor is he the only one who suffers. His min- 
istrations cannot help lacking freshness, live- 
liness, vigor and force; and they to whom 
they are given are the first to observe and 



Accessories. 



187 



complain of the defect although the cause 
may be beyond their ken. 

Among all the deficiencies of the Church 
not one is so great and so pressing as the 
want of some remedy for this evil. If we 
were not too proud and too prejudiced to 
act upon the maxim of worldly wisdom, 
learn from your enemy, we might find in 
the discipline of the Roman Catholic clergy 
the needed remedy. They have what they 
call "retreats," when the clergy are required 
to quit their homes and regular duties, go 
into residence at an appointed time and place, 
and submit themselves to a special discipline 
for a period. Surely when the retreat is dis- 
solved and the devout priest is returned to 
his duty he must carry with him a body and 
heart refreshed by its holy exercises. 

We have shown the need of a hall at the 
Cathedral for the residence of the missionaries 
of the diocese, and the Deacons serving in the 
see city. Provision for the entertainment of 
the parochial clergy could here easily be 
made. At stated or convenient times, each 



i88 



Accessories. 



could go into residence at the hall, and 
either in company with his fellows or fol- 
lowing the sense of his own needs, submit 
himself to a special discipline of prayer, 
meditation and reading. He would enjoy 
the peace and rest of the holy precincts, as- 
sociation with the other clergy, and com- 
munion with and direction of his Bishop. 

There is a spiritual science of religion as well 
as an intellectual science of religion. Into the 
mysteries of the former even more than into 
the questions of the latter, his experience 
would impel him to enter; while the means 
thereto in such a place must be vastly greater 
than in the midst of the work of a parish, and 
by the aid only of solitary meditation. 

Such rest and exercises cannot fail to dis- 
sipate morbid tendencies, and restore the 
equilibrium of the soul. And the clergyman 
must go back to his parish and flock refreshed 
and strengthened in his own character, pur- 
poses, and resolutions, and better able to serve 
those committed to his care. 

3. In very early times a school for boys was 



Accessories. 



attached to almost every Cathedral, and was 
conducted by the Chapter, certain Canons be- 
ing detailed to the work. Henry the Eighth 
founded such schools at all the Cathedrals 
which were without them; most of them sur- 
vive to this day; some have great renown. 
They are day schools for the Cathedral towns 
with limited provision for boarding pupils. 
They are generally grammar schools and may 
fit their scholars for the universities. 

A branch of the Cathedral school should 
be for choristers. Their daily training in 
music and the services in the daily office 
make it necessary that they should be under 
constant restraint, discipline and observa- 
tion, in order to correct evil habits, dispo- 
sitions and tendencies; so that the bad boy 
may never enter the sanctuary with holy 
words on his vile lips, and that the good 
may be delivered from evil. Boys living 
in other towns and needing such training, 
whether fitted by their musical gifts for the 
choir or not, could easily be provided for in 
families of the clergy or other Christian peo- 



190 



A ccessories. 



pie; so that while the pupils might be ever 
so numerous, yet there would be no need of 
the great and expensive establishment of a 
boarding school. This is an incidental part 
of the legitimate work of the Cathedral of 
very great importance. 

4. It is hardly possible to conceive of such 
a body of clergy as we have described, de- 
voted to these works, and such a laity as 
would desire their services and give them sup- 
port, who would not seek out and contrive 
many ways of doing good to the unfortunate. 
Our blessed Lord did not give all His time and 
labor to preaching, meditation and prayer. A 
large portion was spent in relieving the mis- 
eries of poor people and of His friends. It is 
of the philosophy of religion that work and 
worship, the services of charity and medita- 
tion, go together; and observation teaches us 
that the most devout seek most the ways of 
doing good. 

The Cathedral life, filled with its own work, 
must be a life of very high spirituality. They 
who are devoted to it will, by a law of human 



Accessories. 



191 



nature be devoted to every work of Christian 
charity. They will have hospitals for the 
sick, asylums for the aged poor, homes for 
children, retreats for the distressed, and every 
other means and method for ministering to 
human wants, sorrows, and misfortune. Each 
will come in its order, and its time; but there 
will be no contentment until every need is 
supplied. 

5. We have a few words to say of the Cathe- 
dral as a school of sacred music. We begin by 
a few brief excerpts from the book of which, to 
the great pleasure of our readers we are sure, 
we have already made use. 

"The choral part of the service of the 
Church (whether it be vocal, or instrumental, 
or both) is not a mere appendage or orna- 
ment, added on from without; it contributes 
very mainly to the fervor and life, and there- 
fore to the reality, of the service. It would 
be otherwise, if no faculty but that of the 
understanding w r ere called into exercise in the 
worship of God. Speech, mere plain speech, 
the less ornate the better, is the language of 



192 



Accessories. 



the understanding. But, if the heart is to be 
touched, and the emotions stirred by worship, 
so that the flame of devotion shall kindle up 
easily, there must be music in some shape or 
other, — music, at all events, if in no technical 
form, yet at least in the tones and modula- 
tions of a speaker's voice/' . 

"And here occurs a thought, which, though 
expressed already, needs to be brought out in 
sharper relief. It should be distinctly under- 
stood and avowed that, whatever may be the 
case in ordinary parochial churches, the culti- 
vation and performance of anthem music and 
of services, (as they are called), is part of the 
business of a Cathedral. That form of Church 
music will expire, unless it is maintained; and 
the regular and appropriate place for its main- 
tenance is the mother Church of the diocese. 
And it is a necessary corollary from this, that 
in a considerable part of the choral service in 
Cathedrals, the congregation must acquiesce in 
being listeners. It would be out of the ques- 
tion for any congregation, however well they 
may acquit themselves in chanting Psalms, to 



Accessories. 



193 



follow vocally the services and the anthem. 
And why should they ? Why is not a mental 
following of what is sung sufficient ? We are 
all, clergy and people, to bear our part in the 
worship of God; and the choir has their spe- 
cial function therein, as the clergy and the peo- 
ple have theirs. Is the idea of any one being 
a more devout listener to the service offen- 
sive ? Why should it be so ? Is devout lis- 
tening to a sermon or to the lessons unpro- 
fitable ? Why should devout listening to a 
sentence or two of Holy Scripture be rendered 
less profitable by the circumstance of that 
sentence being musically rendered, and pre- 
sented (perhaps) by the music under a new 
aspect ? May we not appeal to our text as an 
authority for the benefit ensuing upon simple 
listening ? It was by listening to the minstrel, 
that Elisha's soul was brought to such a tem- 
per as to be susceptible of an impulse from 
the spirit of prophesy. It was by submitting 
himself to the soothing influences of Davids 
harp, that 'Saul was refreshed, and was well, 
and the evil spirit departed from him.' And 



194 



Accessories. 



it is by listening with a steady and quiet en- 
deavor, either simply to compose the mind (if 
the music be merely instrumental), or to send 
the sense of the words (if it be vocal) into the 
mind and heart, that we shall reach that end 
of edification and raised feeling, the attainment 
of which is a chief end of ecclesiastical music. 

" In estimating the extent of the work, which 
our Cathedrals have it in them to do for the 
promotion of Church music, it must be remem- 
bered that music has by no means as yet taken 
that position in our services which it has a 
right to take. The minds of people are not at 
all disabused of the notion that music is a mere 
ornamental accessory of worship; they have not 
yet at all come round to the view that it is the 
truest, highest, deepest expression of devotional 
feeling. What, for example, would be the crit- 
icism made by nine members out of ten in an 
ordinary congregation, on the introduction of 
music in the celebration of the Holy Commun- 
ion — on the singing, say, of the ' sanctus,' and 
the ' Gloria in excelsis ? ' Would it not almost 
infallibly run thus: T approve of singing the can- 



Accessories. 



195 



tides in the morning and evening prayer; 1 
even approve of chanting the psalms in Cathe- 
drals; but the Holy Communion is something 
so very solemn, that the introduction of music 
distracts the mind, and seems to match ill 
with the occasion.' This is what the majority 
would say, if they said what they felt; and yet 
what an absurd anomaly does it seem, when we 
come to examine the matter on the ground of 
reason, that into all our lower acts of worship 
music must be freely admitted; but that from 
the Christian banquet, the Christian festival, 
the most jubilant and exulting of all services, 
of which at its first institution music formed an 
integral part, (for we are told that our Lord 
and his disciples ' sung a hymn,' after the in- 
stitution of the eucharist,) the notes of the or- 
gan and the voices of the singers should be (as 
if such things were a species of desecration) 
carefully banished ! Surely the prevalence of 
any such feeling denotes that a great advance 
has yet to be made before our services can be 
brought up to that standard, to which, with the 
consent and co-operation of our congregations, 



196 



Accessories. 



it would be quite practicable to bring them. 
That consent and co-operation may be ob- 
tained, not by introducing, without the as- 
signment of sufficient reasons, sudden and 
startling changes, thus shocking instincts and 
associations which have been long in forming; 
but by quietly keeping pace in our practice 
with the progress of Christian thought, and the 
improvements which that thought is rapidly 
carrying with it. In matters devotional we are 
all very much the creatures of habit, and resent 
(naturally enough) the disturbance of our old 
ways of thinking and acting; but if a practice 
be in itself proper and reasonable, and its pro- 
priety be quietly pointed out, the strangeness 
soon begins to wear away, until at length we 
begin to approve, and ultimately become at- 
tached to it. It is by no means sufficient to 
perceive theoretically what is just and right in 
these matters; great discretion, great patience, 
great charity to the infirmities of others, and 
profound submission to lawful authority, are 
necessary in giving effect to it. At the same 
time, progress is an indication (and the only 



Accessories . 



197 



sure indication) of life; and it is to be remem- 
bered that if the method of performing the 
services of our Church should be no more 
solemn, reverent, and attractive a quarter of a 
century hence than it is now, the inference 
would be unfavorable as to the spiritual life 
and devotion of the present generation." 

These words of the pious, wise, and learned 
Dean add the weight of his authority to the 
sentiments which they beautifully express; and 
they suffice for the advocacy of the Cathedral 
service. There remains one practical question: 
How can the diocese be served by the Cathe- 
dral in respect of Church music? It has been 
proposed in England to establish the office of 
Diocesan Precentor, and make him a member 
of the Chapter; his duty being to superintend 
musical instruction for the Diocese. I believe 
that this has actually been done in some of the 
English Cathedrals. In our country at Denver 
the choir-master and organist are very accom- 
plished in the art and science of music, and 
of musical instruction. They have been able 
to gather large classes of pupils, many of whom 



1 98 



Accessories. 



have already had such training as American 
teachers can give. Their instruction, thorough 
and extensive, has provided a large choir of 
men, women and boys. They carry their ed- 
ucation farther, and rouse a genuine enthusi- 
asm by the production in the large Cathedral 
of oratorios and masses. If to this it be ob- 
jected that, a Church is not the proper place 
for such exhibitions let the origin of the name, 
oratorio, be recalled: it was from the oratory 
of St. Philip Neri in which it was first pro- 
duced. By means of such exercises, not only 
is the most emphatic religious instruction 
given to the people, but persons are trained to 
the holy office of rendering unto Almighty God 
a worship, the very highest man can offer, and 
therefore more nearly worthy of His holy name. 

Those trained in such a school and by these 
splendid exercises, going out into all parts of 
the diocese, carry with them an elevated taste 
and an aroused interest, and in their turn teach 
others what can be done for the worship of God 
even in the humblest Churches. 



VIII. 



THE CATHEDRAL AND THE SEE CITY. 
f7HAT we have been saying has been 



mostly of the diocesan institution. 
Were we to stop here the representation would 
be only of the side which the Cathedral pre- 
sents towards the wide fields which lie beyond, 
and mainly far beyond, the community in whose 
midst the Church and its accessory buildings 
stand. That is the most interesting view, and 
to it the attention of American churchmen 
needs most to be directed. But it is only a 
partial view. We must not stand fixed and ab- 
sorbed in our gaze upon the grand facade of 
tower, buttress, clerestory and transept, as they 
end in the graceful octagon of the Chapter 
house, and never pass around to the wide en 
trance of the western end, through which the 
worshipers daily enter the sacred courts. If 




200 The Cathedral and the See City. 



we content ourselves with the one view, we go 
away not only having seen but half the glory 
there, but with a false conception of the per- 
fect whole. 

The Cathedral is a diocesan, but it is also 
a local institution: it has a side towards the 
See city and special relations to it. We may 
classify them thus: they are, first, to society; 
secondly, to the people dependent on its min- 
istrations; and thirdly, to other Churches. 

I. The Cathedral has relations to the whole 
society of the See city besides what it bears 
to Church people. It is a public, popular, civic 
institution, as well as an ecclesiastical estab- 
lishment. 

Let us suppose the Cathedral in a city. 
The building has some pretensions to size, 
dignity and beauty. It is capable of hold- 
ing multitudes; the chancel with Bishop and 
clergy in the midst is resplendent with the 
majesty of the Christian priesthood ; and 
the choir is full of singing men and women 
and boys lifting up their voices to the Lord 
God Almighty. The day is one of the civic 



The Cathedral and the See City. 201 



festivals, when all the people are agitated by 
the common and sublime emotion of patriot- 
ism, — the 4th of July, or the 22d of February, 
or the public Thanksgiving. Or it is a day 
of mourning as when our armies are turned 
back in battle, a President is murdered, or the 
people are plagued by the pestilence that 
walketh in darkness and destroyeth at noon- 
day. The citizens are bidden to the Cathe- 
dral, and there they offer their thanksgivings 
or their lamentations in such a service as 
the liturgy of the Church alone can furnish, 
heightened by the highest art of human voice 
and instrument of music. Let that happen 
just once in any city, and what must follow 
but that the public heart is profoundly moved 
and the faces of the people turned towards the 
Church. And when other such days come, 
the crowds will throng thither as to the fit, 
accustomed and delightful place where to be- 
gin to keep the holy day. It is what no de- 
nomination can begin to do, though every 
appliance of sacied art be exhausted in the 
effort. The Roman Catholic Church can do 



202 The Cathedral and the See City. 



it for her own children but not for strangers 
to her ritual. Our Church alone is capable 
of it, and for reasons which any one of our 
readers will recall without our aid. 

Even while we write, in the grandest pub- 
lic festival of our day, her precedence is ac- 
knowledged. The Bishop of Long Island in 
his robes of office with his attendant clergy, 
in the midst of the innumerable crowds gath- 
ered to the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge, 
is, as every heart admits, the fit and true 
sacerdotal authority to consecrate the occa- 
sion and work. To complete the sacred 
service, there was but need of a great Ca- 
thedral in the city, in which before moving 
to the majestic structure the municipal and 
civic authorities and body of the citizens 
should be gathered, and a grand Te Deum 
be sung in the ears of them all. 

Let it once become the settled order in 
the See city to draw the citizens to the 
Cathedral by these civic services, and they 
will adopt it as theirs, to be fostered and 
rejoiced in as such, and the Church will once 



The Cathedral and the See City. 203 



more begin to take her place among the 
transcendent forces of society. We need not 
take time to speak of the service to society 
which will be rendered by the works of mercy 
which will be gathered about the Cathedral. 

We must pass on to say a few words, 
secondly, of the relations of the Cathedral 
to the people dependent on its ministrations. 
These are of two classes. One is made up of 
strangers in the See city, and of residents not 
formally attached to a parish. Their number 
is always considerable. The necessity of pro- 
viding for them is as great as the difficulty. 
The parish Church is not equal to keeping a hold 
upon them. The young man tarrying in town 
for a while or making his home there, looks 
into the door of a Church and sees, by their 
manner and acquaintance, that those entering 
there are used to the place; he knows he is 
not one of them and is shriveled by the chilly 
sense that he is a stranger. He passes by and 
never comes back. He may be told that the 
seats are free, but it is not an abstract right 
to sit where he will that can attract him: he 



204 Th* Cathedral and the See City. 



must feel that he is not the only stranger but 
that this is the Church for all such as he. 
The rector may be ever so vigilant in seeking 
out strangers and urgent in his invitations 
to report to him, but he can reach very few 
of those who do not come to him. And the 
same is true of visiting committees, broth- 
erhoods, and other such appliances. They 
do not reach the case. Everybody feels that 
for some reason or other there is a failure to 
reach and deal well with these people. 

The Cathedral is fitted to meet the exi- 
gency. It has an attractive and impressive rit- 
ual. It has several services, some not largely 
frequented, at least not by many of those 
who put a constraint on any one. It en- 
forces a laxity of claim and an equality of 
right beyond what free sittings give to all 
comers, while in its wide spaces is ample 
room for the largest numbers. The mere 
fact of precedence will generally so draw 
occasional worshipers that each will feel 
that he is one of a throng. And thus it 
will be the home of the stranger, and the 



The Cathedral and the See City. 205 



stranger though he be but the solitary boy 
we have been speaking of, will feel at 
home. 

The other class dependent on the minis- 
trations of the Cathedral, is made up of those 
who are wont to find within its walls their spir- 
itual home, and who resort to its clergy for 
spiritual care. There will be a regular congre- 
gation of persons of this class. 

And this congregation differing in many 
ways from those of the parishes and called 
on for large contributions, present many prob- 
lems of difficulty. The question is not about 
their pastoral oversight. Formerly, as we have 
seen, it was usual to charge a particular Canon 
or Vicar Choral with that service; and it is not 
unlike that of a parish priest over his people. 
So that there is no difference or not much dif- 
ference in this respect between the Cathedral 
and the parish, save in the name and style of 
the clergyman who is the pastor of the peo- 
ple. The trouble lies in fixing organic re- 
lations. Shall the congregation be an unor- 
ganized body of Christian worshipers, each 



2o6 The Cathedral and the See City. 



content with his individual place, worship and 
service, without interest in the administration 
of the particular society or of the Church at 
large; or shall it be organized as a separate, 
independent, corporate body with rights and 
duties and powers of its own in which each 
worshiper shall have a part ? Here is a dif- 
ficulty. 

We have seen that the Bishoprics recently 
erected in England are provided with Cathe- 
drals by the adoption of parish Churches for 
the purpose; that in Canada the general pol- 
icy is that of the Cathedral superimposed on 
the parish; and that in many American dio- 
ceses the same polity obtains. This has been, 
and, so far as it remains, it still is a mere ex- 
pedient. All feel its insecurity and inade- 
quacy and look forward to outgrowing it. 
The reason is that the parish being the cor- 
poration, and as such legally vested with the 
title to the property and with its administra- 
tion, it may, in any case of disagreement with 
the Bishop or Chapter or diocesan authorities, 
determine the relation. 



The Cathedral and the See City. 207 



We are not without more than one in- 
stance of this. One was the unhappy issue 
which sprung up between a former Bishop 
of Montreal and the rector of Christ Church. 
The particular matters of difference were 
not of great importance; but his lordship 
put his wishes and views forward, and when 
they were not readily and altogether ac- 
cepted, he insisted upon them as of right. 
The rector, on the other hand, professing a 
desire to accommodate himself to the views of 
the Bishop, felt that the admission of his 
claims would be drawn into precedent, and 
therefore it was a duty which he owed to his 
office and to those who should come after him 
to defend his legal and corporate rights un- 
compromisingly. Our question here is not as 
to the right of either side or of the special 
matter of disagreement, but with the mere 
circumstance that a grave issue of principle 
was raised upon the official prerogatives of 
the parties. 

No undefined, uncertain system can with- 
stand the shock of such controversies. And 



2o8 The Cathedral and the See City. 



they are almost certain to come. Tact may 
delay and concession may avert them for a 
while, but pretensions, claims, and demands 
grow so rapidly when unresisted that the end 
is certain. The only wise course is to an- 
ticipate disagreements by the surrender of the 
parish to the Cathedral. 

But here at once other difficulties present 
themselves. Avoiding the parish for the 
sake of unity and to escape the friction of 
diverse interests and forces, the Chapter 
cannot afford to cast out the active, mani- 
fold, hearty and constant assistance of the 
laity of the congregation. The necessity 
of revenues to be raised at short intervals 
out of the members remits the clergy to 
their aid; and even when these are well 
provided, the general care of the temporali- 
ties may best be entrusted to the laity. 
But what shall be the organization of the 
body to be charged with these duties ? Bish- 
op Sweatman's scheme is the election of 
four lay members of the Chapter by the cler- 
ical and four by the lay delegates to the 



The Cathedral and the See City. 209 



diocesan synod. Bishop Perry's scheme is 
the appointment by himself of curators of 
the Cathedral. Both are competent plans 
except that they leave the congregation with- 
out voice in the administration of affairs 
which chiefly concern itself. Or if respect be 
paid to it, by the choice of these laymen from 
its members it still remains without right 
to enforce its judgments and wishes. The 
Denver scheme is the annual election, by 
the congregation, of lay Canons to whom, 
with the Bishop and Dean, the temporalities 
are entrusted. This seems more thoroughly 
to meet the exigency. The whole matter 
is one to be dealt with in every place by the 
wisdom of those who are framing their plans 
of organization. It is further but right that 
the Cathedral congregation should have the 
same representation as a parish in the dio- 
cesan council: it may be fair and wise even 
to give it a larger delegation. 

The relations of the Cathedral to parishes 
in the See city present questions of great 
delicacy. It is not possible to define them 



2io The Cathedral and the See City. 



in canons or statutes, so as to satisfy the 
many conflicting opinions which are cer- 
tain to obtain among very intelligent and 
earnest churchmen. In the earlier ages, be- 
fore the Chapter had become a compact, 
consistent and exclusive corporation, all the 
clergy of the See city surrounded the Bish- 
op and yielded to him the service which 
became due from the latter body. It would 
be a partial return to this system to make 
all the priests of the See city members of 
the Chapter. In cities of the first class this 
is impracticable; in others it may be liable 
to inconveniences. And yet it may be well 
worth while to consider whether, in cities 
where the number of parishes is not too 
great, the bringing of all the clergy together 
to deliberate upon the interests of the Church 
may not tend to mollify and temper asperi- 
ties, which are apt to come rather from ig- 
norance of one another than from actual 
disagreements. At Davenport and Denver 
the attempt has been made to gain unity 
by subordinating the parishes to the Cathe- 



The Cathedral and the See City. 2 1 1 



dral. The experiment will be watched with 
anxious curiosity. 

It is judicious that missions in the city 
and works of mercy of the diocese should 
proceed from the Cathedral and be under 
the direction of the Chapter. This is no 
infringement of the rights of the parishes. 
Certainly this must be so, where, under the 
authority of the canons of the general con- 
vention the diocesan councils have not pro- 
vided for the establishment of new churches 
or congregations, within the limits of other 
parishes and the Bishop is in accord with 
his Chapter. More reasons than one could 
be urged in behalf of this policy. Our pur- 
pose is sufficiently answered by stating the 
matter. 

The whole of this delicate matter of the re- 
lations of the Cathedral to the parishes is one 
to be dealt with on all sides as far above nar- 
row jealousies, and as by those who "shall be 
refreshed in the multitude of peace." 



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